Hurricane Florence likely to bring major damage, despite downgrade to Category 1 storm

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. — Hurricane-force winds will tear through more than 15,000 square miles of the Southeast in the next several days, even as Hurricane Florence starts to slow down. Deadly storm surges, flooding and inland rainfall are expected to cause significant damage as well.

Although Florence has weakened from a Category 4 to Category 1 storm, its area of strong winds has gotten bigger.

Hurricane models are good at predicting the path of a storm, but they’re not as good at predicting changes in intensity, said Dan Chavas, a professor of earth, atmospheric and planetary sciences at Purdue University.  

“Even a small prediction error could have major impacts,” he said. 

Chavas can discuss forecasting, storm evolution and potential impacts of the storm.

Writer: Kayla Zacharias, 765-494-9318, kzachar@purdue.edu 

Source: Dan Chavas, 773-936-4510, dchavas@purdue.edu