Hurricane Helene's threat of widespread flooding rains and high winds prompted NOAA to issue a rare alert Wednesday, warning the storm's effects "won't be limited to the Gulf Coast," with it "expected to travel hundreds of miles inland."
The big picture: NOAA warned in its special weather statement that "heavy rainfall will begin" in parts of the southeastern U.S. "well before" the "unusually large" storm's expected landfall along Florida's northwest coast as a major hurricane Thursday evening,
