Nor’easter to bring more rain and flooding to the Lowcountry...

Nor’easter to bring more rain and flooding to the Lowcountry this weekend

CHARLESTON — Attention Lowcountry residents: Keep the rain boots and umbrellas handy. A nor’easter forming off the East Coast promises to deliver more rain, high winds and surging tides to coastal South Carolina and most of the Eastern Seaboard, according to the National Weather Service. Around noon on Saturday, October 11, the NWS reported the tide reached 8 feet. Several Charleston streets have been closed for flooding. U.S. 17 at the Highway 61 Split was closed. Ashley Avenue from Calhoun Street to Bennett Street was also closed as were parts of Vanderhorst Street. “It’s gonna be a wet couple days,” said Blair Holloway, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Charleston. Even before the arrival of the approaching nor’easter, parts of downtown Charleston were overwhelmed Oct. 10 by rainfall and a late-morning high tide that submerged roads and snarled traffic. Most of Lockwood Drive, which traces along the western edge of the peninsula, was fully underwater at midday. Water flowed, too, down Wentworth and Market streets and many other places, forcing motorists to detour and clog less-flooded roadways. High tide in Charleston Harbor peaked at 8.46 feet at 11:24 a.m., more than two feet above its normal height. This was the 13th-highest tide recorded in Charleston since 1921, including tropical storms and hurricanes. The tide reached past eight feet for two main reasons, Holloway explained. First, there was a full moon on Oct. 7, which normally prompts above-average king tides. Second, the moon is near perigee, meaning it’s particularly close to the Earth in its elliptical orbit, which also exacerbates the tides. That damp mess was merely a prelude to more inclement weather, as the developing storm in the Atlantic Ocean is predicted to push more rain and seawater onshore as it travels north from Florida and passes the South Carolina coast this weekend.

CHARLESTON — Attention Lowcountry residents: Keep the rain boots and umbrellas handy.

A nor’easter forming off the East Coast promises to deliver more rain, high winds and surging tides to coastal South Carolina and most of the Eastern Seaboard, according to the National Weather Service.

Around noon on Saturday, October 11, the NWS reported the tide reached 8 feet. Several Charleston streets have been closed for flooding. U.S. 17 at the Highway 61 Split was closed. Ashley Avenue from Calhoun Street to Bennett Street was also closed as were parts of Vanderhorst Street.

“It’s gonna be a wet couple days,” said Blair Holloway, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Charleston.

Even before the arrival of the approaching nor’easter, parts of downtown Charleston were overwhelmed Oct. 10 by rainfall and a late-morning high tide that submerged roads and snarled traffic. Most of Lockwood Drive, which traces along the western edge of the peninsula, was fully underwater at midday.

Water flowed, too, down Wentworth and Market streets and many other places, forcing motorists to detour and clog less-flooded roadways.

High tide in Charleston Harbor peaked at 8.46 feet at 11:24 a.m., more than two feet above its normal height. This was the 13th-highest tide recorded in Charleston since 1921, including tropical storms and hurricanes.

The tide reached past eight feet for two main reasons, Holloway explained. First, there was a full moon on Oct. 7, which normally prompts above-average king tides. Second, the moon is near perigee, meaning it’s particularly close to the Earth in its elliptical orbit, which also exacerbates the tides.

That damp mess was merely a prelude to more inclement weather, as the developing storm in the Atlantic Ocean is predicted to push more rain and seawater onshore as it travels north from Florida and passes the South Carolina coast this weekend.