Storm days
Florence, then the river
The storm left in a day. The river took a week.
- Medium
- NOAA storm track, measured wind radii, and daily river flow
- Length
- 46 s
- Collection
- Storm days, The Carolina coast
- Posted
- Nov 10, 2026
The story
Florence comes in from the Atlantic as a Category 4, weakens, and comes ashore at Wrightsville Beach at 7:15 AM on Friday, Sep 14, 2018, then crawls inland. The swirl is lopsided the way she really was: NOAA measured how far her winds reached in each direction, and the wind is drawn from those numbers.
Then the storm is gone and the chart takes over. The Cape Fear River at Lock 1 climbs for a week and crests on Sep 21 at 76,700 cubic feet per second, about 50 times its early-September flow.
What you're seeing
- The swirl is a model of the wind built from NOAA's measured wind radii.
- The chart is daily river flow at Lock 1, near Kelly.
Data
Have an interesting day.