Tropical Storm Helene this week is expected to bring heavy rainfall to Augusta with the possibility of flooding in some areas.
“This is a pretty serious situation evolving in my professional view,” said Marshall Shepherd, director of the Atmospheric Sciences program at the University of Georgia. “It’s a Tropical Storm now, but within the next day or so, it will have strengthened to a hurricane once it gets in the Gulf of Mexico.
“There’s plenty of warm, rich water, so I expect it to rapidly intensify to a major hurricane, category three or higher by the time it makes landfall, which will likely be sometime around Thursday evening.”
Showers and possibly a thunderstorm after 2 p.m. are expected for Thursday, according to the National Weather Service . Some of the storms could produce heavy rainfall. The chance of precipitation is 90%. New rainfall amounts between 1 and 2 inches are possible.
“Augusta area will experience some impacts”
“The forecast for Tropical Storm Helene is expected to move northward from the Caribbean and northward through the eastern Gulf of Mexico,” said Frank Alsheimer, science and operations officer with the National Weather Service, located in Columbia, S.C., “eventually making landfall as a hurricane in the big bend of Florida, continuing to move northward through Georgia on Thursday night and Friday morning.”