Life may not soon be the same for some communities in North Carolina's mountains after Tropical Storm Helene. Heartbreak in the hills: The French Broad and Swannanoa rivers swept through Asheville near Biltmore Village.

If the National Hurricane Center’s official forecast track and intensity for Helene verifies, this would make the storm the third major hurricane to make landfall in Florida in as many years. Yet Helene’s become an outlier whose rapid progression from mere tropical disturbance to powerhouse storm has confirmed meteorologists’ fears: A fast-moving tropical system quickly intensifying over a relatively short distance has created one monstrous hurricane.