Hurricane Florence is expected to create significant storm surge in North Carolina, in part because human-caused climate change has raised sea levels in the region by several inches since 1954, the last time a Category 4 storm hit the state.

[For the latest updates, read our Hurricane Florence live briefing here.]

Hurricane winds push water the way a snowplow pushes and piles up snow, said Arthur DeGaetano, the director of the Northeast Regional Climate Center at Cornell University. “Those persistent strong winds blowing in the same direction literally pile up the water,” he said.

The speed of the storm surge can catch people off guard, said Julie Demuth, a research scientist who works with Dr. Morss . “If they think they have three hours to get out of the way, or a day to get out of the way — when in fact storm surge in some cases can cause inundation, deep inundation, in a matter of minutes — then that shapes how they think about what they’re able to do and how they can respond.”

The threat isn’t limited to the coasts

Even the height of the storm surge may not reflect the true danger, Dr. DeGaetano said. “The impact of the surge is not necessarily how high it is but how far inland — how far horizontally — that that amount of surge will eventually flood when it reaches the coast,” he said.

Hurricane Florence may create additional complications after making landfall. The storm is expected to stall over the region for days, dumping as much as two feet of rain, including over inland regions.

“If you live next to a river that’s been subject to repeat flooding over the last few decades, you might also want to consider leaving if you’re in eastern North Carolina, because we’re going to see a lot of freshwater flooding from heavy rains,” Dr. Masters said.

[Here are some tips for how you can prepare to evacuate.]

Here’s what scientists want to change

Dr. Morss and Dr. Demuth, the scientists who work at the National Center for Atmospheric Research, are part of a growing social research effort to understand how people respond to weather messages.