For days, as what would become Hurricane Helene gradually took shape in the Caribbean Sea and then strengthened as it gathered fuel from the warm Gulf of Mexico while racing toward Florida, forecasts of the storm’s projected inland path remained consistent.
After coming ashore on the Gulf Coast, Helene’s heart was expected to pass through the western half of Georgia as it moved northward.
That path was reflected in the National Hurricane Center’s signature maps illustrating the storm’s projected “cone of uncertainty.”
The right edge of the swath – representing the easternmost route that the center of Helene would potentially follow as it moved north – sliced vertically through the middle of Georgia, leaving the state’s coast well outside the depicted path.
But the Savannah area ultimately would experience hurricane-force winds as the remnants of Helene, now a tropical storm, tore through Georgia before barreling into the Carolinas.
Those conditions were to be expected by anyone who’d been closely following the National Weather Service’s forecasts, which called for potential scattered tornadoes beginning in the afternoon of Sept. 26, then potentially destructive wind gusts early the next morning.