The powerful Category 4 hurricane pounded lightly populated islands… Along with damaging winds, rain totals could range between 3 and 5 inches through Monday.
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With a peak strength on Saturday of 155mph, Joaquin became the strongest Atlantic storm since Hurricane Igor in 2010.
Any slight eastward deviation in the forecast track could put Joaquin dangerously close to Bermuda, the NHC warned.
Virginia is home to the world’s largest naval base and is the home port for every East Coast-based aircraft carrier.
Tropical storm warnings are in effect for the Cuban provinces of Camaguey, Los Tunas, Holguin, and Guantanamo.
The island of Bermuda is preparing for an encounter with Hurricane Joaquin. A gradual weakening was expected later in the day. The Bahamas was in cleanup mode Sunday and has discontinued all storm watches and warnings for its islands and cays.
Those waves could cause risky surf and rip currents. “Isolated locations along the New Jersey and New York coast, areas that were hit hard by Hurricane Sandy, could also experience dune erosion”. Rick Meehan, mayor of Ocean City said.
In advance of Joaquin, many residents and business owners secured windows and doors. Outages were reported across the state due to weather. The storm has been blamed for five deaths. President Barack Obama declared a state of emergency in South Carolina, making federal emergency funds available. “I consider that an answered prayer”, he said.
Even without a direct hit on the Eastern Seaboard, severe flooding, partly from hurricane-generated rain, was is a big concern in the Carolinas.
Stay with 8News for the latest on your StormTracker forecast.
Joaquin is expected to avoid landfall on North America entirely. These models would show at a 3-meter resolution how storm surges could inundate land, said Barry Eakins, a marine geophysicist at NOAA’s National Centers for Environmental Information. “We’re going to go and try and save lives”. East Coast states are getting drenched by rain but forecasters say the Category 3 hurricane should weaken later Saturday.
“We would be very concerned about them”, Greene said. He said the net also is interested in significant damage reports to forward to FEMA officials at the National Hurricane Center. A turn toward the north is expected Friday. The storm is about 5 miles (10 kilometers) south of Rum Cay, Bahamas. It is tracking northeast at 21 miles per hour (33 kph).
Bob Turk notes that Joaquin may land in the Carolinas instead of our area. “We were just fighting to get to the scene”.
The rain that we are seeing today is from a cold front which is stuck overhead.
Update: September 30, 8 p.m. He says people aren’t panicking too much.
But the worst was yet to come. Previous notable flooding events caused by heavy rainfall were seen in 1999, 1990, 1908 and 1903, according to South Carolina Department of Natural Resources. New Hanover County listed on its website about 25 closed roads.
Hurricane Joaquin (wa-KEEN) is moving slowly northwestward as it batters the central Bahamas.
The storm now has maximum sustained winds at 80 miles per hour.
A hurricane warning is still in effect for parts of the Bahamas.
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Tim Williams has more on how Joaquin could affect Maryland weather this week.
