This short post isn’t about Colorado climate, but by now you’ve surely seen the devastation in western North Carolina and surrounding areas, resulting from incredible rainfall associated with Hurricane Helene. As it happens, I was visiting NC State University, and the North Carolina State Climate Office, earlier this week. Needless to say, it has been a challenging time for everyone in North Carolina, and with so much to think about and discuss for our field in relation to weather, climate, flooding, communication, impacts, and more, while also grieving all of the lives lost in the disaster.

This blog post from the NCSCO provides a thorough overview of what happened before, during, and after Helene. And during my visit I worked with North Carolina state climatologist Kathie Dello on this explainer in The Conversation on rainfall return periods and how to think about them in the context of the numerous floods in that region in the past decade.

Among the entities impacted by the flood was NOAA’s National Centers for Environmental Information, which is headquartered in Asheville. The good news is that all NCEI employees are safe and accounted for, but the bad news is that like the rest of Asheville they are suffering from flooding, water shortages, and communication challenges. Many of the products on their website are temporarily unavailable, and some of the tools on our own website pull directly from NCEI and are accordingly also not working at the moment. Our September statewide climate summary may be delayed as well.

If you are able and interested in helping the people of western North Carolina, one option is the state recovery fund, at this link. We’re all thinking of our colleagues and friends, and everyone who has been affected.