The National Hurricane Center maintained its tropical storm watch for Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket and said unsafe storm surges would continue along the coast from Virginia to New Jersey. Hermine had maximum sustained winds on Sunday of 70 miles per hour, and the hurricane center said the storm was “expected to be at or near hurricane strength” before beginning to weaken on Monday night.
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The storm was anticipated to bring heavy rain and high winds with the potential for unsafe rip currents and coastal flooding, but tracked further east, missing the impact zone for most of the tristate area.
A Tropical Storm Warning remained in effect early Tuesday as the weakening storm lingered south of New England.
By Sunday evening, the National Hurricane Center said the storm, which made landfall on Friday in Florida as a Category 1 hurricane, was about 335 miles east of Ocean City, Maryland.
The storm is expected to move towards Atlantic Canada but may weaken before reaching there, sparing the eastern provinces of heavy tropical wind and rainstorms.
Around midnight, the National Weather Service’s New York center tweeted that the tropical storm warning for New York City had been canceled but remains active for Connecticut’s coastline and Suffolk, Long Island.
Kyle Brafford said it felt like there were twice as many people on the beach Sunday compared to Monday, but that it was clear many people were not deterred from making the most of the end of summer.
“It was a little overhyped by the media”, said Andrew Thulin, assistant general manager of Daddy O Hotel Restaurant in the New Jersey township of Long Beach.
Governors all along the coast announced emergency preparations.
While Post-Tropical Cyclone Hermine spins away from the Mid-Atlantic states, the storm continues to bring large and risky waves to NY and New Jersey coastlines.
Nevertheless, the US National Weather Service is advising that minor coastal flooding, battering waves and beach erosion could affect New York, New Jersey and CT until Wednesday night, before the storm pulls away from the coast and dissipates.
Nothing like a tropical storm to bring out surfers and adventurers in Delaware.
The Anclote River northwest of Tampa was forecast to go well into major flood stage Sunday afternoon.
Hermine is still hanging on, even though the storm’s force is slowly weakening as it churns along the northeastern shore.
Michael Mann at Pennsylvania State University noted that this century’s 1-foot sea-level rise in New York City meant 25 more square miles flooded during Superstorm Sandy, causing billions in additional damage.
Coastal flooding will be still with us but much less than had been anticipated in many previous forecasts.
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One person died in Florida as Hermine approached.
