At 1:55 p.m. EDT (17:55 UTC) on September 5, NASA-NOAA’s Suomi NPP satellite captured an image of Post-Tropical Cyclone Hermine lingering off the coast of NY and southern New England. “Well, the beach is frightful because of the waves, and this storm has spread a lot of high- and mid-level clouds over New Jersey right now and over Long Island”, he said. Downgraded to a tropical storm within hours, it still packed a wallop.
Advertisement
The storm is churning up unsafe rip currents locally and all along the U.S. East Coast and storm surges in the Northeast.
“I was really surprised”, said Amber Johnson, who is from SC, about the number of people at Atlantic Beach.
The storm now has maximum sustained winds near 70 miles per hour, with higher gusts, and tropical storm-force winds extending outward up to 230 miles from the storms center.
This system brought coastal flooding to parts of the northern Mid-Atlantic and southern New England.
Hermine spun away from the East Coast on Sunday, removing the threat of heavy rain but maintaining enough power to whip up.
But as what was once Hermine fades, gusting winds are expected into Wednesday throughout the region. Earlier reports suggested that the storm could build back up into a hurricane, but instead it has gradually weakened and is being classified as a post-tropical storm.
Forecasters warned swimmers and boaters along the Eastern Seaboard to stay out of treacherous waters churned up by the storm during the Labor Day holiday weekend.
At 11 a.m., Post-Tropical Cyclone Hermine was centered about 230 miles southeast of the eastern tip of Long Island, New York.
New York City planned to close its beaches Monday because of rip currents, and the ban could extend into Tuesday, depending on weather conditions, officials said.
“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. Those riptides can be risky, and we’ve already seen a couple problems due to capsized boats in the area. A rougher surf cleared portions of the beachfront.
As of late Sunday, Hermine, which made landfall in Florida on Friday, was sitting off the east coast, with a possibility the storm could regain hurricane strength.
Since sea levels have risen up to a foot due to global warming, the storm surges pushed by Hermine could be even more damaging, climate scientists say. “We should be reasonably safe”, said Canadian meteorologist Doug Mercer. “And it’s only the beginning”.
In New Jersey, big waves and churning surf up to the base of dunes were reported in some areas of the state hit hard by Superstorm Sandy in October 2012, including the Ocean County communities of Point Pleasant Beach, Bay Head, Mantoloking and Brick.
Advertisement
The first hurricane to hit Florida in more than a decade wiped away beachside buildings and toppled trees on homes Friday before plowing inland on a path that could send it rolling up the densely populated East Coast. The third reported death was that of a man struck by a vehicle on a SC highway on Friday as he tried to move a fallen tree, a Colleton County fire department spokesman said.
