While what was left of Florence rained on the northeast yesterday and has since left the country, the damage has been done. Epic amounts of rain fell from the former hurricane, smashing all-time records in North Carolina and South Carolina.More than 35″ of rain fell in portions of North Carolina, making Florence the top rain producer for an East Coast tropical cyclone. According to the National Weather Service office in Raleigh, NC, Florence dumped more than 8.02 trillion gallons of water on the state alone. Flooding conditions in the southeast will persist for a while longer, but the recovery efforts in areas hardest hit by Florence will take months, if not years. In portions of Texas hit hard by Hurricane Harvey during the 2017 Hurricane Season, residents are still dealing with issues from those record floods then.
The southeast wasn’t the only to see heavy rain from Florence. More than 2″ in fell in portions of Ohio, West Virginia, New Jersey, Maryland, and Pennsylvania; more than 3″ fell in portions of New Hampshire and Massachusetts. Heavy rain from Florence in the northern Mid Atlantic and northeast came after the remnants of Tropical Storm Gordon soaked the region too.
While rainfall records didn’t fall in the northeast from Florence, they did in the southeast. Florence dropped 23.63″ of rain in South Carolina and 35.93″ in North Carolina; the previous record in North Carolina was set by Floyd; that storm, which was devastating for the state, had dropped 24.06″ –nearly 10″ less!
