Inland Locations

MYTH #1: "Hurricanes don't pose any real danger this far away from the coast."

Regions affected: Near-inland portions of coastal counties and near-inland counties in southern and eastern coastal states. Also affected: Far-inland counties in southern and eastern coastal states, as well as counties in non-coastal states like Ohio and Oklahoma that may be in the path of tropical remnant systems.

Inland flooding in Houston from Tropical Storm Allison of 2001. NOAA Photo.

Of all the hurricane myths, this one is potentially the most fatal. More people are killed during an average hurricane season by drowning in inland freshwater floods than from coastal effects like storm surge. As with the benchmarking, people at some inland locations may hold a false sense of security with respect to hurricanes or hurricane remnants passing over their area.

A dissipating tropical storm can potentially inundate an area with as much rain as a Category-5 hurricane. Rainfall amount has not been found to correlate with storm intensity, although it is related to the hurricane's forward speed (slower storm speed translates into more rainfall over a particular area).

Tropical Storm Erin over Oklahoma, 2007

Most of the dozen or so fatalities caused by Tropical Storm Erin, so named because it never attained hurricane status, took place in the northern part of the landlocked state of Oklahoma. The adjacent imagery is from the local Weather Foreacast Office in Norman, Oklahoma - home of the Storm Prediction Center, the nation's tornado prediction headquarters. Although most people wouldn't associate this place with tropical cyclones, it cannot be said that the area shouldn't pay attention to the path of approaching tropical remnants. If Erin was deemed unusual, it wasn't because it was passing over Norman, but because this now tropical depression seemed to have reintensified back up to tropical storm intensity while over land.

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