File:Ophelia Stretches Over the East Coast (MODIS).jpg

English: Early in the morning on September 22, 2023, a non-tropical low system off the coast of North Carolina strengthened to form Tropical Storm Ophelia. By 8 pm on that same day, Ophelia strengthened to near-hurricane force, according to the National Hurricane Center (NHC), with maximum sustained winds of 70 mph (110 km/h). Several hours later, at 6:20 a.m. on September 23, the storm maintained that strength as it made landfall near Emerald Isle in North Carolina.

Once on land, Ophelia’s wind speeds quickly dropped as the storm trekked northward across eastern North Carolina and Virginia, before becoming extratropical and continuing across Maryland and Delaware.

On the afternoon of September 23, near the time that the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Terra satellite acquired this true-color image, the NHC advised that Ophelia’s maximum sustained winds were 45 mph (70 km/h). Its center was located about 95 miles (150 km) south of Richmond, Virginia and about 80 miles (130 km) east-northeast of Raleigh, North Carolina and it was traveling to the north. Tropical storm-force winds extended 320 miles (520 km) from the center, with rain bands reaching from South Carolina to Maine and Nova Scotia, Canada.

Ophelia’s winds, rain, and storm surge caused damage in many locations along the East Coast. The Weather Channel reported 4 feet of inundation along the Neuse River near Janeiro, North Carolina, a storm surge of 3.5 feet in Sewell, Virginia, and a storm surge of 2-4 feet commonly occurring from northeastern North Carolina into the Chesapeake Bay. In Maryland, both Annapolis and Baltimore’s Inner Harbor experienced heavy flooding while buildings were damaged by wind and flooding in Ocean City, Maryland. Downed trees and power outages were widespread along the entire track of the storm, affecting many thousands of homes and businesses.