Helene was a gulf storm that normally would not have even raised winds to 25 MPH on the east coast. But the monster wind field delivered some incredibly high wind gusts hundreds of miles from the storm’s center and lashed the east coast of the state with sustained tropical storm winds for 12 hours.

Here were the crazy high wind gusts over 60 MPH from the east coast of Florida that were recorded by weather stations on Thursday.

Jacksonville NAS (Duval) 75 MPH

Opa-Locka Airport (Miami-Dade) 73 MPH

Mayport NAS (Duval) 71 MPH

Kennedy Space Center (Brevard) 70 MPH

Craig Field (Duval) 69 MPH

Juno Beach (Palm Beach) 67 MPH

Cocoa Beach (Brevard) 67 MPH

Government Cut (Miami-Dade) 66 MPH

St Augustine Beach (St Johns) 66 MPH

Buckman Bridge (Duval) 66 MPH

Pembroke Pines WX station (Broward) 65 MPH

Fort Lauderdale/Hollywood International Airport (Broward) 64 MPH

North Perry Airport (Broward) 64 MPH

Palm Coast WX Station (Flagler) 63 MPH

Lake Worth Pier (Palm Beach) 61 MPH

WJCT (Duval) 61 MPH

Yulle WX Station (Nassau) 61 MPH

Vero Beach Airport (Indian River) 60 MPH

St Johns FSWN Fire Station (St Johns) 60 MPH

Tamiami Airport (Miami-Dade) 60 MPH

Dozens more wind gusts were recorded over 50 MPH from Atlantic coast counties.

So this explains why the NHC placed the Atlantic coastal counties under a Tropical Storm Warning for days in a storm that was never forecast to reemerge in the Atlantic. The NHC and the forecast models correctly indicated the wind field was so large that counties on the other coast were going to feel sustained tropical storm force winds and occasional gusts approaching Hurricane strength.