High winds from tropical storm Hermine make their way north and effects can be seen as waves crash into shore on Sunday in Atlantic City, New Jersey.
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The storm was projected to creep north along the Carolina coast, then gather strength after moving offshore into the Atlantic on Saturday morning, possibly reaching near-hurricane intensity by late Sunday, the National Hurricane Center said.
Tropical storm Hermine could strengthen as it meanders off the New Jersey coast causing widespread flooding and unsafe rip tides, while the Lehigh Valley forecast calls for sunny skies today and just a 20 percent chance of rain Monday. However, life-threatening surge and flooding rains continue with tropical storm watches and warnings in effect for several areas.
“It’s going to sit offshore and it is going to be a tremendous coastal event with a risky storm surge and lots of larger waves probably causing significant beach erosion, for the next few days”, said Daniel Brown, senior hurricane specialist at the center.
Hermine is still expected to hit the city with winds on Monday, with gusts as high as 40 miles per hour, according to the National Weather Service. No significant rainfall was expected for the area, although scattered rain may occur in parts of southern New England and in the mid-Atlantic states.
At 11 a.m. (1500 GMT), the center of the fourth named storm of the 2016 Atlantic hurricane season was just off the northern Outer Banks of North Carolina, with top winds strengthening slightly to near 65 miles per hour (100 kph), the hurricane center said.
Now he’s hoping to start a seven-hour drive back to NY before the storm hits. While the forecast has improved, residents should follow the direction of lifeguards as to whether it is safe to enter the water at any beaches across the state.
Virginia Beach resident, Seth Broudy, speaking to Reuters news agency about the coastal conditions on Saturday, said: “Right now it’s rough as hell”. Much of southern New England remained under a tropical storm warning with scattered showers, high surf and risky rip currents forecast. It has caused at least three deaths, inflicted widespread property damage and knocked out power to hundreds of thousands of people from Florida to Virginia.
Forecasters said the system could strengthen back into a hurricane by Monday morning off the Maryland-Delaware coast before weakening again as it moves north.
After a sunny Sunday with highs in the 70s, Monday and Tuesday are expected to peak in the low to mid-80s, with mostly sunny skies and overnight lows in the low 60s.
With some hopeful vacationers still strolling along sand-blown boardwalks, Hermine’s assault on the East Coast is just beginning.
Virginia had 55,000 homes or businesses without power, Chesapeake and Virginia Beach reported downed trees and power outages across the cities and Norfolk was hit with up to 4 inches of rain, officials said.
But, the move could also trigger Hermine to develop hurricane-force winds tonight and Monday due to the warmer waters it will travel over, which could push water to the shores even harder.
Pennsylvania State University geosciences professor Michael Mann told the Guardian, “We are already experiencing more and more flooding due to climate change in every storm”. In Florida, a homeless man was struck and killed by a falling tree south of Gainesville, according to Gov. Rick Scott.
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It also spawned a tornado in North Carolina.
