A college student's weather reports about Hurricane Helene go viral

During the devastation of Hurricane Helene, an unexpected source became a trusted go-to source for information in western North Carolina – A student's Facebook page.

Ethan Clark is the brains behind it North Carolina Meteorological Departmentwhich grew in popularity during last week's storm.

North Carolina's Weather Authority is a weather site Clark started in 7th grade just for his friends and family.

Clark has a passion for the weather and is known for making detailed forecasts.

“I talk about every county,” he told FOX Television Stations. “I have a lot of small towns with me. And I’ve just been building my following, and it’s basically all me, just trying to showcase the state of North Carolina and provide forecasts for everyone, not just the big cities.”

On September 25th, he shared a video with his followers for the first time Helene came with the warning not to be surprised.

“We will weather this storm like any other and prepare for flash flooding and strong winds, especially in portions of the mountains/foothills,” he wrote alongside it an almost 12 minute video which took viewers through weather graphics and radar forecasts.

We now know how severe Helene's devastation was.

READ MORE: How a Florida hurricane led to historic flooding in North Carolina's mountain towns

Helene's path through the southeast left a trail of blackouts so large that the darkness was visible from space. Tens of trillions of gallons of rain fell and more than 200 people died, making Helene the deadliest hurricane to hit the U.S. mainland since Katrina in 2005. Hundreds of people are still missing, and search parties have to trudge through knee-deep rubble to get to know whether residents are safe.

Western North Carolina was hit particularly hard.

“As it approached North Carolina, we knew it was going to be bad because when we looked at the models, we had a pre-event from a frontal battery that dropped five to 10 inches of rain in western North Carolina as early as Thursday. And we “It rained 20 inches on Friday, up to 30 inches in some places, and that's easy – no one can handle that much rain in that time. This is a recipe for catastrophic flooding,” Clark told FOX Television Stations.

During the storm, he took time to post from county to county to help collect and disseminate real-time information to and from people in the area.

People would share information about power updates, road outages, missing family members and cell service.

Thousands of people interacted with his posts, many also thanking him and wishing him safety during the storm.

“Unfortunately, many communities have been completely wiped out. We haven't even seen some of the worst impacts yet. I'm getting a few photos from some of the worst affected areas and unfortunately it's just devastating. And it's going to take a while,” he shared.

“I think it will be one of those Fran, Floyd-type hurricanes that have been talked about for generations.”

Clark continues to share restoration updates with his more than 571,000 followers the communities of western North Carolinaas well as ongoing weather warnings in the region.

He also keeps an eye on it Tropical Storm Miltonformerly Tropical Depression 14, heading toward the west coast of Florida next week.

READ MORE: Tropical Storm Milton is forming in the Gulf and targeting Florida before quickly becoming a hurricane