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      What to Expect From Helene as It Moves North

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      As Helene thrashes the Florida Panhandle with “unsurvivable” storm surge and “catastrophic” winds Thursday evening, people across the Southeast were bracing for the storm’s arrival in their region in the coming hours and days.The worst was expected to hit in the late evening and overnight in the Big Bend of Florida, including Tallahassee. Here’s a look at the next few days.Friday: The storm quickly follows Interstate 75 north out of Florida.The storm is expected to move very quickly overnight, reaching north Georgia by Friday morning, and the worst will be quickly over in Florida. But this storm’s quick pace will mean the core of its most intense winds could extend all the way to near the Atlanta metro area.Because of the vast size of Helene, the tropical storm-force wind gusts are also likely across Georgia and the Carolinas late Thursday and into the day Friday, particularly over the higher terrain of the southern Appalachians.Even worse is the heavy tropical rainfall tied up in the storm, which will push further into the Appalachian Mountains, where the National Weather Service has warned the storm will be one of the most significant “in the modern era.”For the third day in a row, from foothills in Atlanta to mountains in Asheville, where rivers and creeks are already pushed to the brim, even more extreme rain is expected to fall on Friday.The combination of the wind and the wet soil will make it much easier for trees to fall. And it makes the rough terrain susceptible to landslides.As Helene moves north, it will begin to spin around another storm system, which will make it turn left over Tennessee.This weekend: The remnants of the storm will lingerRain will fall across central Kentucky and Tennessee eastward to the central Appalachians and Mid-Atlantic region the remnants of Helene combine with another weather system.This rainfall could result in more flooding as the rains persist through Monday. More

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      In Tallahassee, Residents Worry About a Defining City Feature: Its Trees

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      Tallahassee, Fla., with its towering oaks, stately pines and shaded streets, faces a severe threat to its iconic canopy of trees as Helene approaches.The state’s capital, Tallahassee has long prioritized protecting its trees, which cover more than half the city and are a cherished part of its identity. Its famous canopy roads, shaded by moss-draped live oaks, sweet gums and hickories are a defining feature.Among the city’s notable trees is the Lichgate Oak, an ancient tree that has become a natural landmark. The city is also believed to be the home of two “Moon Trees” — a sycamore and a loblolly pine — grown from seeds taken into space during the Apollo 14 mission in 1971. However, the very trees that shape Tallahassee’s character could become a hazard during the storm. A city report on its urban forest warns that much of the city’s trees are short-lived and have wood that is prone to breakage under stress, making them particularly vulnerable to strong winds. Helene could test this vulnerability. Though Tallahassee is located at least 30 miles inland, the city is under a rare hurricane warning. Forecasters have warned that the storm could bring gusts of up to 75 miles per hour, and potentially stronger winds exceeding 110 m.p.h. The city has never before recorded sustaining hurricane-force winds.Brenda Geddes, 60, a longtime Tallahassee resident who was stocking up at a Walmart on Wednesday in advance of the storm, said of the trees, “When it’s a storm like this, you can only do so much.” In past hurricanes, the city has largely been protected from strong winds because of its geography, but storms have still caused significant damage outside the city.Donna Staab, 67, who lives about an hour and a half southeast of Tallahassee in Keaton Beach, recalled how Hurricane Idalia last year felled over a dozen trees on her neighbor’s property and a few on her own. The sound of wood chippers became a familiar backdrop.“You could hear it for weeks afterward,” Ms. Staab said.The fear of similar destruction is weighing on Tallahassee residents such as Natasha Sutherland, 39, who, along with her husband, decided to head to Alabama for safety on Wednesday. As she drove north, she became emotional while taking in the view of the city’s overhanging trees and her favorite places.“I started crying a little bit,” she said, as a thought occurred to her: “‘Gosh, this might be the last time I see it like this ever again.’” More

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      Hurricane Idalia Destroyed His Home. He’s Riding Out Helene Next Door.

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      The pieces of paper taped to mailboxes and front doors on Wednesday carried a stark warning: “You must evacuate your mobile home by tomorrow morning due to Hurricane Helene.”The Twin City mobile home complex in St. Petersburg was buzzing with activity Wednesday evening as people responded to the warning, which wasn’t much of a surprise to residents because their neighborhood has become increasingly prone to flooding over the last few years. Many were lifting cars onto concrete blocks, packing up their pets and preparing to leave the complex of tidy, pastel-colored homes.But some planned to stay. Ryann Ivins, 59, walked his dog, Dexter, during a break in the rain. Helene’s approach made him nervous, he said, because last August, Hurricane Idalia brought hip-high water into the complex and inside his home. He recalled carrying Dexter, who can’t swim, through the floodwaters to higher ground at 4 a.m.That storm cost him baby pictures of both himself and his children, as well as photos of the hot-rod cars he had built over the years. “It’s like half my life got erased,” he said.A few months ago, he moved into a new trailer in the same complex. He bought brand new furniture for his two children, ages 10 and 11. Now, he’s worried about what Helene could do. So while he intends to stay through the storm to keep an eye on his belongings, he is taking other precautions.“I already got my kids out of there,” he said. “I moved all my stuff up. And pray. That’s about all I can do at this point.”He said he’ll go on living at Twin City as long as he can stand the rising waters.“It was real nice for a while,” he said. “Then, all of a sudden, it started to flood.” More

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      Study Finds Climate Change Doubled Likelihood of Recent European Floods

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      Storm Boris dumped record amounts of rain over Central and Eastern Europe this month. A new study found climate change made the deluge more likely.Europe faced catastrophic floodwaters that affected two million people earlier this month and transformed neighborhoods and urban centers into muddy rivers. At least 24 people died, and some were reported missing.That lethal deluge, known as Storm Boris, was made twice as likely by human-induced climate change, according to a new analysis by World Weather Attribution, an international group of scientists and meteorologists who study the role of climate change in extreme weather events.The storm dropped 7 to 20 percent more rain than a similar one would have in a preindustrial world, before humans started burning fossil fuels and releasing greenhouse gases that have increased global temperatures.The world is heating up quickly: 2023 was the warmest year on record, and 2024 could still surpass it, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. In the simplest terms, warmer air holds more moisture that contributes to more intense and frequent rainfall.More than a half-dozen countries in Europe — including Poland, the Czech Republic, Austria, Romania, Hungary, Germany and Slovakia — saw record-breaking amounts of rain between Sept. 12 and Sept 15. The slow-moving, low-pressure system dumped up to five times September’s average rainfall over those four days. The floodwaters led to power cuts and the closure of schools, factories and hospitals.But it was only one of many flooding events that have wreaked havoc across the world in recent months.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Floods Kill More Than 1,000 People in West and Central Africa

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      Flooding caused by heavy rains has left more than 1,000 people dead and hundreds of thousands of homes destroyed.Aishatu Bunu, an elementary schoolteacher in Maiduguri, a city in Nigeria’s northeast, woke up at 5 a.m. to the sound of her neighbors shouting.When she opened her front door, she was greeted by the sight of rising waters outside. “We saw — water is coming,” Ms. Bunu said.In a panic, she and her three young children grabbed some clothes and her educational certificates and fled their home into waters that quickly became chest high, eventually finding temporary shelter at a gas station.Ms. Bunu was speaking on Friday from the bed of a truck that she managed to board with her children after several days of sheltering at various sites across the flood-stricken city. The floodwaters inundated Maiduguri early last week after heavy rainfall caused a nearby dam to overflow.Flooding caused by the rain has devastated cities and towns across west and central Africa in recent days, leaving more than 1,000 people dead and hundreds of thousands of homes destroyed. Up to four million people have been affected by the floods and nearly one million forced to flee their homes, according to humanitarian agencies.The exact number of deaths has been difficult to tally given the scale of the disaster, and the officially reported figures are not up-to-date. In Nigeria, the authorities said that at least 200 people had died, but that was before the floods hit Maiduguri, which has added at least 30 people to that toll. In Niger, more than 265 have been reported dead. In Chad, 487 people had lost their lives as of last week. In Mali, which is facing its worst floods since the 1960s, 55 died.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Typhoon Shanshan Makes Landfall in Southern Japan

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      The risk of life-threatening landslides and floods was rapidly increasing in parts of Kyushu Island as the storm lashed it with relentless rain, the authorities warned.The storm unleashed torrential rain, hurricane-force winds and the threat of landslides.Kyodo, via Reuters More