Tonight Nicole became a hurricane as it crossed the warm water of the Gulf Stream. It is expected to stay as a hurricane as it makes landfall late tonight or early tomorrow and heads northwest over Florida. If you read this in the morning digest, it will probably already be well onshore. Then it will sweep north and then northeast over Georgia as it accelerates in the strong flow ahead of a cold front. At this point it is not clear if it will briefly enter the Gulf or stay over land, but either way, it is expected to weaken as it moves over land. Rainfall should be reduced due to its rapid forward speed, so earlier forecasts of 2-4 inches in a large area have been somewhat reduced. Water levels along the coast are also elevated and I expect to see reports of erosion and some road closures along the East Coast as water is blown onshore from the winds out of the east north of Nicole’s center, especially at high tide. It could be especially damaging in the area around Daytona Beach, FL, which lost most of its protective dunes during Hurricane Ian and is open to the direct impacts from Nicole’s storm surge.
The tropical storm force wind field, especially north of the storm, is still very large, and gusty winds and wet soils should combine to cause falling trees and disrupted power at scattered spots ahead of and near the center of the storm. At my house in Athens, GA as of Wednesday night, I can hear that the wind is definitely up already and I expect gusts to increase overnight and through the day tomorrow as the center of Nicole gets closer, even though it will be weakening. Rain has been falling over much of central Florida today and is just entering the SE corner of Georgia tonight. It will expand north through Georgia and into South Carolina during the day on Thursday ahead of the storm’s passage. The storm will be weakening as it accelerates to the northeast, so most of the impacts of the storm will be out of Florida by Thursday night and Georgia by Friday evening as it brings rain and wind to the Carolinas, Virginia, and the Mid-Atlantic States.
Following Nicole’s passage through the Southeast, much colder air will be drawn down into the region, leading to frost in some northern and higher elevation locations over the weekend, so strawberry farmers and others may wish to cover their new plants. The rain from Nicole is likely to put a significant dent in the drought conditions that have been growing across the Southeast in the last few weeks. We won’t see that in the Drought Monitor map released on Thursday, November 10, which had a data cut-off of Tuesday the 8th, but it will definitely show up in next week’s map.
