Hurricane Helene Decimated North Carolina Forests, Too

The forest basically collapsed around this house
in mountainous western North Carolina during
the winds of Hurricane Helene in September.

As we well know, the extreme flooding from Hurricane Helene in western North Carolina is one of the worst and deadliest disasters the United States has seen in years. 

North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper has recently said the total damage estimate in the state is so far up to $53 billion, very likely the most expensive disaster in the state's history. 

Almost all the damage was obviously due to floods and landslides. 

But I've been struck by the images I've seen of the destruction to forests in western North Carolina.  Heavy rain often extends far inland after a hurricane comes ashore, though this is an extreme example.  But wins from a hurricane usually diminish pretty quickly after a hurricane makes landfall.

The area of western North Carolina is very roughly 400 miles from where Helene made landfall near Perry, Florida.  Still, the wind damage up in the mountains near Asheville was incredible. 

As Fox Weather Reports: 

"The North Carolina Forest Service has completed an aerial damage assessment of forest lands across western North Carolina and the losses are staggering. 

The surveyors estimate 822,000 acres of timberland were damaged or destroyed across more than a dozen counties during Helene, with McDowell County hit particularly hard. All told, the NC Forest Service estimates damage to the state's timber at $214 million."

With all those trees down, there's new hazards that can afflict the mountains of western North Carolina. 

As television station WYFF in Greenville, South Carolina reports: 

"With the loss of such a large portion of the ecosystem in the area, officials said this can cause several negative effects including: The threat of wildfire due to increased fuel levels, loss of vital wildlife habitat, impacts on watershed health and the higher potential for invasive species to thrive."

Plus, you can't just play pick up sticks and remove all the fallen trees. There's too many. It's hard enough just clearing the mess from mountain back roads and remote driveways and hiking trails. 

WHY THE INLAND WIND

 The rapid forward movement of Helene probably helped preserve the storm's strong winds well inland. And the high elevations likely captured the strong winds better than valleys, as a dying hurricane often maintains its high winds aloft better than near the surface. 

The mountains were high enough to be exposed to those upper level winds. While valleys were comparatively calm, the mountains were being blasted by 80 to 100 mph winds. 

Former hurricanes can hang on to their wind energy well inland, especially as these interact with other weather systems. 

And yes, the chances are low, but here in Vermont we can lose much of our forests if the wrong hurricane takes the wrong path. 

It's happened before, in the Great New England hurricane of 1938. The Category 3 hurricane came ashore on Long Island and near New Haven, Connecticut and moved rapidly northwestward from about Brattleboro to Burlington. 

Its fast forward speed, and the fact that its winds were most intense over and east of the center decimated Vermont sugar bushes. Some estimates say half of Vermont's' maple trees blew over or were uprooted.

We even had a mini-instance this past summer of a former hurricane trekking inland and raising havoc with Vermont's trees.  

Hurricane Debby made landfall near Steinhatchee, Florida before dawn on August 5. Its remnants moved northeastward through central New York and clipped the northwest corner of Vermont on August 9. We were just in the correct spot for the Debby remains to transfer its remaining strong winds aloft down to the surface, especially in the  Champlain Valley.

Winds gusted past 60 mph, causing quite a lot of tree, power line and even structural damage. 

NORTH CAROLINA'S SETUP

The North Carolina Forest Service said most of the damage appears to be from what looked like downbursts or microbursts. That might be a symptom of intense upper level winds being "grabbed" by either topography or thunderstorms embedded in the overall wind field.

The topography of mountainous western North Carolina helped contribute to the areas of worst damage. 

Per the Washington Post:

"The same rugged topography that sent floodwaters racing through valleys compounded the wind's destructive power. Ridges acted like walls to a funnel, allowing winds to concentrate and strengthen. As they hit east-facing slopes, they were then pushed uphill, accelerating as they converged at the top of each peak."

Intense hurricane winds are almost unheard of as far inland as the Smoky Mountains of North Carolina. So trees there evolved in such a way that they don't tolerate such intense winds. They're not like pine forests near the hurricane-prone coasts, which are rooted in ways to brace their roots so they don't pull up. The pine branches and trunks are flexible so they often bend but not break in hurricane winds. 

The broad deciduous tree leaves in the mountains each act like little sails, pulling the tree in the winds until it topples. Those coastal pine trees have needles that don't catch the wind so much. 

The blasted forests of North Carolina might well be the longest lasting legacy of Helene.  It'll probably take a few years to patch up all the roads, rebuild homes and businesses that can be rebuilt, and for life to return to some semblance of normal.

But it will take decades to regrow the hardest hit forests. Many people living there will never again fully see the forests that had been part of their lives for decades.

 Videos:

First video is an interview of a woman whose family huddled in their high elevation house above Asheville, North Carolina as almost the entire forest around them blew down within an hour and a half. In the video, it's interesting to see that depending on which way the hillsides face, the forest destruction was either  complete or minor.

 In this video, it looks like wind got momentum going downhill,  kind of like the damaging downslope winds we sometimes see in Vermont on the western slopes of the Green Mountains. 

Very luckily, the trees fell in such a way that the house miraculously suffered only minor damage. Click on this link to watch and hear the wild story, or if you see the image below, click on that. 

Drone footage by Aaron Rigsby via AccuWeather shows areas of terrible forest destruction in North Carolina next to areas of beautiful autumn foliage. The video taken on October 22 shows the capriciousness of the timber damage in the western Carolina mountains. Again, click on this link to view, or if you see the image below, click on that. 

More excellent aerial shots by Aaron Rigsby. Click on this link or if you see the image below, click on that.