10 Inches of Rain from Ernesto

It's official; Ernesto hit my beach [JessePedia], as I had feared yesterday. The National Weather Service proclaimed early this morning:

DATA FROM NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE WSR-88D DOPPLER RADAR IN WILMINGTON INDICATES THAT THE CENTER OF ERNESTO MADE LANDFALL NEAR LONG BEACH NORTH CAROLINA AT 1130 PM EDT WITH MAXIMUM SUSTAINED WINDS NEAR 70 MPH.

LANDFALL RADAR ANIMATION | ZOOMED

The rain has been incredible, with a huge swath of 6 to 10 inches across the eastern Carolinas (according to Doppler radar), now heading into Virginia.

Our Breaking Weather News Page says: In 24 hours, ending at midnight Friday, 11.13 inches of rain deluged Hampstead, North Carolina. In addition to winds gusting to 62 mph, Wilmington, North Carolina, experienced a 24-hour rainfall total of 9.56 inches, also ending at midnight Friday. This amount of rain not only broke a daily rainfall record, but also made this August the wettest on record. Wilmington normally sees 7.35 inches of rain in August; this year, 18.84 inches of rain poured down. The heavy rain made many roads across eastern North Carolina impassable.

The Weather Channel is updating that total to 10.25" and quoting a 12.52" amount at Surf City, NC. I'll see what else I can dig up.

Additional rain from "Tropical Rainstorm Ernesto" will accumulate from 6 to 8 inches in Eastern Virginia and surrounding area today.

GET INVOLVED!

Of course, as we've talked about before, it's rare to see winds at the NHC classification numbers, so let's be calm until we hear reports of how much damage there was (there is no news yet on specific damage from local news outlets WECT, StarNewsOnline or WWAY). WWAY does say that wind GUSTS to 70 mph were reported at Wrightsville Beach (of course, NHC classifications are based on sustained 1-minute winds, not gusts).

WECT does have some user-submitted photos of flooding and trees down. There is also an Associated Press photo from yesterday shown below... ahhh... the familiar "Star News" mailboxes.

For a look back at the storm, check out some of our on-site coverage in our Video Page (PREMIUM).

Shaniqua Greene, right, and Tiffany Ward check the mail in their flooded neighborhood in Wilmington, N.C. Thursday, Aug. 31, 2006. Tropical Storm Ernesto dumped heavy rains in the area causing localized flooding. (AP Photo/Gerry Broome)