The Florida Panhandle will experience the brunt of Tropical Storm Helene, which is expected to become a major hurricane when it makes landfall, but South Georgia and even metro Atlanta will feel the impacts.
The storm will make landfall Thursday evening in the areas between Panama City Beach and Cedar Key as a hurricane with winds potentially reaching 115 mph, the National Hurricane Center projects. Models show Helene reaching major hurricane intensity while over the eastern Gulf of Mexico.
By Friday morning, the storm will have reached metro Atlanta, but heavy rain will start as early as Wednesday morning in northwest Georgia.
Forecast path for Helene
On Tuesday, the storm swirled south of Cancun and the western tip of Cuba and was moving northwest at just over 10 mph. Helene is expected to reach the Yucatan Channel and it could get close to Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula by Wednesday morning with a maximum wind speed of 74 mph, nearing Category 1 hurricane strength.
Helene is expected to intensify quickly and expand in size over the eastern Gulf of Mexico between Wednesday and Thursday night. There is a risk of life-threatening storm surge along the entire west coast of the Florida Panhandle and the Big Bend area.
After making landfall, the storm will wedge itself between a system of low pressure rotating clockwise to the northwest of Georgia and a system of high pressure spinning clockwise just off the east coast, Channel 2 Action News chief meteorologist Brad Nitz said. Those systems will impact Helene’s path through Georgia between Thursday evening and Friday morning, Nitz explained.
Stay up to the date with the NHC here.
