Breakfast Brief: All eyes on Helene

Breakfast Brief
Helene floods Southeast

Helene is weakening as it heads deeper into the Southeast and the Tennessee and Ohio valleys today. However, heavy rain and winds will produce more flooding and likely more power outages. Meanwhile, more rain heads into the Mid-Atlantic, keeping it gray and soggy.

Major Hurricane Helene made landfall along Florida's Big Bend overnight and the now tropical storms continues to chug inland across Georgia and into South Carolina this morning. Although it continues to weaken, it will bring a deluge of flooding downpours across the Southeast, Tennessee and Ohio valleys and southern Appalachians today.

This day in weather history

On this day in 1985, Hurricane Gloria swept across North Carolina's Outer Banks. It would later sweep across Long Island before slamming into New England.

For the fourth day in a row, the WeatherRadar shows much of the East Coast locked in a gray and soggy pattern. The heaviest rain will fall across the southern Mid-Atlantic and central Appalachians as a front taps Helene's moisture.

Our TemperatureRadar shows summer-like hot weather locked into place from northern and central Plains westward into the Rockies, Mountain West, Great Basin, Southwest and interior West. Highs in the 80s and low 90s will be 20 degrees warmer than normal. Triple-digit, possible record highs will bake Las Vegas, Phoenix and Tucson.

The immediate Pacific Coast including Seattle, Portland, San Francisco, Los Angeles and San Diego will be in the 70s. Across the Southwest and High Plains today, records could be broken.

The rest of the U.S. is quiet today. See the latest forecast on the WeatherRadar.

Tropical update:

Helene is weakening as it moves inland today. It will swamp Georgia, South Carolina, Tennessee and the Ohio Valley with upwards of 10 inches of rainfall. Higher amounts will be possible across the southern Appalachians. High winds will continue, especially over higher elevations of southern Appalachians and Great Smokey Mountains, causing toppled trees and increasing the power outages. We're covering it on the app all day today.

Elsewhere in the Atlantic, Hurricane Isaac is spinning in the central Atlantic far from land and a new area of tropical development is possible well east of the Lesser Antilles. Both aren't a threat to land.