At a Glance A dozen North Carolina locations picked up over 24 inches of rain. Over a half-dozen South Carolina locations picked up over 18 inches of rain. If verified, these would become the all-time tropical cyclone rain records for North Carolina and South Carolina, respectively. These may be the third and fourth states to set tropical cyclone rain records in just over 12 months. Hurricane Florence appears to have set two tropical cyclone state rainfall records during its agonizingly slow crawl through the Carolinas. An observer with the CoCoRaHS network near Elizabethtown, North Carolina, about 50 miles northwest of Wilmington, tallied 35.93 inches of rain from Florence through Sep. 17. Rainfall totals from Hurricane Florence from Sep. 13-17, 2018. (NOAA/WPC) If this preliminary total is confirmed by meteorologists, it would crush the previous tropical cyclone rainfall record for North Carolina in records dating to 1950, previously held by a reporting station near Southport, measuring 24.06 inches of rain during Hurricane Floyd in September 1999, according to David Roth, a meteorologist and tropical cyclone rainfall expert at NOAA's Weather Prediction Center (WPC). CoCoRaHS is a non-profit, nationwide volunteer network of observers trained to take precipitation measurements to supplement conventional weather observations. According to the CoCoRaHS network and the WPC, 15 North Carolina reporting stations measured rainfall in excess of the previous state tropical cyclone record. In neighboring South Carolina, observers near Loris, about 25 miles north of Myrtle Beach near the border of North Carolina, reported over 23 inches of rain. Six other reports of 18 to 22 inches of rain were received by the WPC in Chesterfield, Dillon and Marion counties. If these preliminary totals can also be confirmed, they would all have shattered South Carolina's tropical cyclone rainfall record, previously held by Tropical Storm Beryl in 1994 (17.45 inches), according to Roth. Current state rainfall records from tropical cyclones since 1950. Florence's rainfall set preliminary tropical cyclone state records in both North Carolina and South Carolina. (David Roth, NOAA/WPC) To put this in perspective, Dr. Robert Rohde of the University of California, Berkeley, estimated 10 trillion gallons of rain fell in the Carolinas during Florence. Advertisement This is enough water to fill 15,141,650 olympic-size swimming pools, the home stadium of the NFL's Dallas Cowboys, AT&T Stadium, 12,853 times and is double the volume of the Great Salt Lake. Florence's slow movement and training bands of rain were responsible for these heavy totals. A tropical cyclone's rain potential is largely dependent on its forward speed, not its wind intensity. The slower it moves, the heavier the rain totals. (MORE: Three Reasons Slow-Moving Tropical Storms and Hurricanes Are the Worst) For comparison, Hurricane Matthew produced up to 18.95 inches of rain in the Carolinas in October 2016, leading to flooding that topped levels from Floyd along the Neuse River at Goldsboro and Kinston, North Carolina. Hurricane Floyd in 1999 wrung out torrential rain on ground saturated from Tropical Storm Dennis a few weeks prior, leading to massive flooding in North Carolina. Two Other Recent State Records Tropical cyclones and their remnants are notoriously heavy rainfall producers. In August 2017, Harvey set a U.S. tropical cyclone rainfall record, dumping 60.58 inches of rain near Nederland, Texas, topping the previous record from 1978's Tropical Storm Amelia, which dumped 48 inches in Medina, Texas, according to NOAA's David Roth. Almost exactly one year after Harvey, Hurricane Lane dumped 52.02 inches of rain at Mountain View, Hawaii, a gauge located on the Big Island of Hawaii at an elevation of 1,600 feet above sea level. Another private weather station reported 58.8 inches of rain during Lane. The two state record tropical cyclone rainfall totals set prior to Florence. The Lane total is preliminary and will need to be verified to be accepted as a record. If those Hawaii totals are confirmed and the North and South Carolina totals are also confirmed, that would make four state tropical cyclone rainfall records smashed in just over 12 months' time. (CAT 6 BLOG: The Flooding and the Aftermath)<doc-sep>NORTH CAROLINA (WTVD) -- As Tropical Storm Florence lingers, there are a lot of questions regarding how bad it will get in the Triangle and Sandhills.However, residents in those areas should still be prepared for major flooding.As of right now, most counties have seen at least a few inches of rain, but how much more will they see?By Saturday morning: 4-6 inchesBy Monday: An additional 4-8 inchesBy Saturday morning: 1.5-2 inchesBy Monday: An additional 4-6 inchesBy Saturday morning: 10-15 inchesBy Monday: An additional 8-15 inchesBy Saturday morning: 2-4 inchesBy Monday: 15-20 inchesBig Weather said these areas will see such a dramatic increase because they are closer to the center circulation of Florence.He added that rainfall will pick up Saturday night into Sunday.<doc-sep>
It started raining Thursday in the quaint North Carolina tourist town of Swansboro, and 34 inches later, it was still raining Sunday. The good news is that it's supposed to stop – on Wednesday. "We broke the state record for rain at one time," Mayor John Davis said. "But, considering the strength of the storm and how long it has stayed, we did pretty well." The storm is Florence, and it roared onto the North Carolina coast last week and hasn't left. Swansboro, the self-proclaimed "friendly city by the sea," is home to about 3,000 people, on the Intracoastal Waterway about 80 miles northeast of Wilmington. Davis told USA TODAY that he doesn't want to downplay the hardships facing many residents as the cleanup moves forward. But he said roads have been cleared and efforts to restore power, a process that could take two weeks to complete, are underway. Davis said a few homes did flood. Storm surge caused minor damage to some businesses near the water. And the wind when the Florence first hit took a toll. "In our historic district, we had 10 roofs peel off like the top of cans," he said. More:Florence bringing 'catastrophic' flooding, mudslides deep into North Carolina More:Florence: Mayor tells thousands to evacuate or notify next of kin National Weather Service meteorologist Bob Oravec said other cities also are likely to see rain totals reaching 30 inches before the rain finally stops later in the week. "This is historic in terms of the amount of rain from one storm," Oravec said. Davis, who has served as mayor for 10 months, estimated that about half of Swansboro's residents are riding out the storm. He spent the last few days holed up in the public safety building with first responders, watching over his town. "The days all blend together," he said. "But we are moving forward."