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WRAL meteorologists are tracking Tropical Storm Helene in the western Caribbean and its potential to impact North Carolina. The storm's projected path shows impact to central and western North Carolina later this week. Any potential impact to our area would likely come Friday and Saturday.

Helene now a hurricane; expected to intensify into Category 4 storm

I'm Wral. Meteorologist K Campbell Hurricane Helene is likely to undergo rapid intensification over the next 24 hours. It's moving north right now at 12 MPH. Still a category one hurricane likely now to strengthen into a category four hurricane on its approach to the Florida Big Bend region. Top winds now forecast to be at 130 MPH. It is possible that number could go up the track veers a bit to the west after that. But the bottom line here is that this is a massive hurricane. The initial tropical storm force winds extend about 400 miles when it makes landfall. So we're still likely to see significant impacts in western North Carolina. Tropical storm warnings are posted and that includes the North Carolina Mountains and Charlotte even hurricane warnings. Well, inland in Georgia, here's a closer look at the tropical storm warning for parts of North and South Carolina. Asheville included. Boone is not, but Charlotte's included as well. So let's take a look here at Futurecast, a cold front already bringing dangerous flooding to the mountains tonight, Thursday, we've got the cold front and the moisture from Helene that ramp up flooding risks to a high risk in the mountains. And we expect landfall to come Thursday evening, Atlanta in the direct path and this could be pretty close to hurricane strength even as far inland as North Georgia expect big impacts to travel and air travel there in Atlanta. For us. The worst of this comes very, very early Friday morning through the early afternoon hours. That's when we're going to see the worst of the rain, the winds and that tornado threat. But it does look like we'll begin to dry out by Friday evening. We'll have a much closer look on WRL news tonight at 10 and 11 at our local impacts and what to expect in the mountains. I also have a video on wrl.com with more on our local impacts. Go to our weather story.

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