Hurricane Irene Update from Pat Prokop, Friday, Noon | Weather

Savannah / Hilton Head Island Area:
At noon Friday, the center of hurricane Irene was nearly 200 miles east-southeast of Savannah and Hilton Head Island with 105 mph winds. It will be directly east later this afternoon or early evening.  The storm will remain about 200 miles east of our coast.   Hurricane force winds extend 50 miles west from the center while tropical storm force winds extend 150 miles west from the center (meaning they're all offshore). Tides along the GA coast are running 2.1 feet above normal right now. Some minor tidal flooding could occur around 6 pm today.  Once the storm passes to our north, later this evening, the winds will shift to a westerly direction blowing the tide out alleviating any additional tidal flooding.

Mid Atlantic States:
Hurricane conditions will pass over the outer banks of North Carolina late tonight and early tomorrow morning.  From there, Irene will move northward toward the Delmarva peninsula scraping Delaware with hurricane conditions.

New York City Area:
It appears that this storm will then affect the major population areas of New Jersey, New York City and Boston Saturday night and Sunday as a category 1 hurricane.  Even though winds will be down to about 85 mph, in the large cities, wind tunneling effects could result in gusts over 100 mph.  This could cause large panes of glass from windows in the skyscrapers to fail and fly through the air crashing down upon the pavement … and extremely dangerous event.  This along with abnormally high storm surge could disrupt the subway system in New York City.  The damage in that area alone could exceed $10 billion from this storm.

Patrick Prokop
Broadcast Meteorologist at WTOC since 1980