Let me start out by saying: I know many of the people posting in this thread are already cognizant of what I discuss below. But, I felt it would be a good topic to cover. One, to provide new knowledge to those that aren't aware of the deficiencies of the Saffir-Simpson scale and traditional metrics; two, as a refresher to all of us closely watching Florence and speculating on what she'll do.
Now that Florence can be visualized on radar, I think her winds are going to be more of a problem than people suspect. She's got a huge area of hurricane force winds. She's going to batter a very broad area. Her surge potential is significant due to her size and energy levels.
I truly don't believe her weakening is going to help as much as people think. Outside of, perhaps, inland wind damage. Particularly, in the area immediately inland that will see the eyewall, but is at too high of an elevation for storm surge. The lower wind intensity will likely help that area. But, for everyone else, I don't see the weakening being a significant help.
Florence was showing around 70TJ of kinetic energy around 1200UTC - - down from a peak of around 100TJ (Wilma/Hugo level) 24 hours prior to today's reading. Because of how/when Florence weakened those two measurements are a bit misleading. Over the past 18-20 hours, Florence has sharply increased in kinetic energy compared to the low point she reached yesterday. Sure, her core doesn't look so amazing like a Cat 4/5, but she's close to the energy of one. In fact, in a pretty short period of time, Florence has gone from having the kinetic energy of a Cat 2, to having the KE of right at a Cat 4. And, she's still increasing her KE.
So, I don't think the impacted areas are out of the woods - - I actually believe the opposite. Florence is increasing her damage potential, and it comes at a very bad time. The next 2-3 kinetic energy measurements are going to be crucial. We really should minimize the Saffir-Simpson scale when discussing a storm like Florence. The potential is there for severe impacts to the affected areas. The next 6-12 hours, Florence's track/movement, and where she makes landfall (and at what time) are going to huge factors in how much damage she ends up producing. Point is: the POTENTIAL is there. Don't sleep on this storm.
Current kinetic energy of Florence
Kinetic energy of previous Hurricanes:
Article on WaPo discussing how the Saffir-Simpson scale and traditional metrics doesn't do justice to larger storms, or those with certain characteristics.
Here's another article covering much of the same (it is very interesting).