The original item was published from March 1, 2018 4:49 PM to May 19, 2022 11:13 AM
Ladies and Gentlemen,
Please find the latest NWS Decision Brief hot off the presses! Also, we just concluded a conference call with the NWS and Virginia Department of Emergency Management.
As stated before, this will not be a rain event directly. In fact, rainfall today should end later this evening with a fraction of an inch. The impact the rainfall may have is the causation of ground saturation which could come into play with the high winds.
As it pertains to the winds, Bill Sammler, Warning Coordinator Meteorologist with the NWS, reports the strongest winds will arrive tomorrow mid-morning through midnight. The Hourly Graph shows gusts upward of 50mph, but he reports max gusts could actually reach 60mph. Saturday morning will see a decrease in winds (gusts around 30mph / 25 sustained) and Sunday morning even less (sustained winds in the teens), but still breezy.
Saturated ground plus high winds = potential for downed trees, downed lines and power outages. This is most likely to occur mid-morning tomorrow (Friday) through the daytime hours Saturday.
Along with the winds, the big story is flooding. Based on the Tide chart, the forecast for the highest tide of concern (Saturday night at 10:26pm) has dropped about 1ft. Therefore, the first high tide of concern is Saturday morning (10:05am) which is expected to reach the Minor flood level of 4.5’, followed by the Saturday night high tide of 5.5’ – close to the Moderate flood level. The Sunday morning 10:49am high tide looks to be similar to Saturday night’s.
While the flood level has gone down a bit, it is the wave activity on top of the flood levels which is also a concern. Along the coast, waves will be around 10-15’ along the immediate shoreline for a period of 2-3 days. As such, wave run up / beach and dune erosion issues are expected to be significant.
We will continue to monitor and keep you posted.
Thank you and be safe!
Jim
Director
Norfolk EOC