Ophelia An All Week Story

Ophelia lies just off the coast of the Carolinas this evening. The storm is moving slowly and erratically but all expectations are for it to make landfall mid-week somewhere in eastern North Carolina. The screen capture from AccuWeather.com RadarPlus below clearly shows the eye of the hurricane via the high resolution visible satellite, and it shows intense bands of the hurricane reaching southern New Hanover and Brunswick counties in North Carolina. This area (Oak Island specifically) is my vacation stomping ground, so I hope it does not see extensive damage. As long as the storm comes in to the northeast of the island, storm surge should not be a huge problem.

With this slow movement, we could be looking at this storm all week and the coastal rainfall could become the big story. In fact, AccuWeather.com is predicting 4 to 6 inches across all the eastern coastal counties.

The observations from buoys and C-MAN stations have been unremarkable thus far today, with #41004 reporting sustained winds just over 50 mph with gusts to 64 mph. Waves are a little more impressive with #41004 showing 18 foot waves. Buoy #41013 also reported 17 foot waves at 1 pm but hasn't reported a wave height since then. Keep an eye on the AccuWeather.com Hurricane Center for more information on Ophelia.