Hurricane Helene Update: How Path for Florida Landfall Has Shifted

Hurricane Helene’s path has narrowed slightly since the National Hurricane Center (NHC) on Monday morning began issuing updates about the storm.

Helene became a tropical storm on Tuesday morning and is expected to make landfall in Florida’s Big Bend region on Thursday night. Many counties have already started issuing mandatory evacuations, with the NHC urging residents to take those evacuations seriously. As of Wednesday afternoon, Helene had maximum sustained wind speeds of 85 mph and was classified as a Category 1 hurricane. Experts anticipate it will make landfall on Thursday night as a Category 3 or stronger.

Over the past few days, the forecast cone for the storm’s progression has narrowed as Helene approaches the Sunshine State. Although the Helene’s center progression has narrowed, meteorologists are still warning residents of widespread impact across several states.

Before the NHC official updates, meteorologists were unsure of Helene’s direction. Some spaghetti models—or computer models illustrating potential storm paths—showed the hurricane careening west to hit Texas or moving north to strike Louisiana. Now most spaghetti models show the storm making landfall between Florida’s Panama City and Tallahassee as a major hurricane on Thursday night.

Newsweek reached out to the Tallahassee branch of the National Weather Service (NWS) via phone for comment on Wednesday.

After Helene makes landfall, it is expected to move further inland through Alabama and Georgia before remnants of the storm will whip into Tennessee, Kentucky, Illinois and Indiana by the weekend.

The most recent NHC update shows life-threatening storm surge will extend far outside the Helene’s forecast cone, along the entire western coast of Florida in varying severity.

“A catastrophic and deadly storm surge is likely along portions of the Florida Big Bend coast, where inundation could reach as high as 20 feet above ground level, along with destructive waves,” the update said. “There is also a danger of life-threatening storm surge along the remainder of the west coast of the Florida Peninsula.”

Multiple NWS weather alerts related to Helene have been issued for a slew of Southern and Southeastern states, including hurricane warnings, tropical storm warnings, flash flood warnings, flood watches and hazardous weather outlooks. Impacted states include West Virginia, Tennessee, Kentucky, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama and Florida.

Several meteorologists have also warned residents outside of the hurricane’s expected center to be on alert, as the storm can cause widespread damage. Also, storm paths can shift, which is what occurred during Hurricane Ian’s devastating landfall in late September 2022. Most earlier storm path models showed Ian hitting the Tampa area hard and then slowing, but as the storm got closer to landfall, models revealed it would cut east across the state before exiting into the Atlantic Ocean. The storm resulted in a death toll of more than 100 people.