Post-Tropical Storm Hermine moved farther to the east than expected and away from the East Coast on Sunday morning, but forecasters said the storm was likely to hang around off the coast for the next few days.
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Hermine (her-MEEN) rose up over the Gulf of Mexico and hit Florida on Friday as a Category 1 hurricane before weakening to a tropical storm across Georgia.
“At a minimum, we’re going to have some beach erosion, rip currents and risky waves all the way from the south facing shores of New England, Cape Cod, Nantucket. down to the Hampton Roads area”, Knabb said.
The storm is expected to turn northeast and slow down later Sunday before likely moving northward to northwestward through Monday. As Tropical Storm Hermine churned a choppy path past the Atlantic Coast hundreds of miles out to sea Sunday, Governor Christie warned people along the Jersey Shore not to be “lulled by the nice weather” that prevailed throughout the state.
The National Hurricane Center’s latest forecast shows Hermine continuing to move offshore and north through Monday-which is “some good news”, noted the National Hurricane Center’s Director Rick Knabb in a briefing this morning.
The former-hurricane Hermine, now a post-tropical cyclone, has shifted far enough out to sea that it is not expected to make landfall in NY or anywhere else in the Northeast.
Gov. Andrew Cuomo says the state will activate its emergency operations center early Sunday afternoon in anticipation of any issues from the storm. “I urge all residents and visitors in low-laying coastal areas to be vigilant of flooding during high tide and to check local weather reports before heading out to Labor Day celebrations tomorrow”.
Delaware Governor Jack Markell declared a limited state of emergency for Sussex County, which includes the coastal resorts of Bethany Beach and Rehoboth Beach.
According to AccuWeather.com, due to the duration of the storm, there is the risk of coastal flooding in some areas hit hard and missed by Superstorm Sandy, with.a large mass of dry air eventually giving way and allowing Hermine to push up the Eastern Seaboard, beyond the southern United States this weekend.
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.
A Tropical Storm Watch is in effect for… Areas in the Mid-Atlantic and Southern New England should expect a long duration event with wind and rain coming in pulses over the next several days.
“40-50 miles per hour wind gusts on south coast, Cape & Islands w/ scattered power outages possible tonight into Mon PM #Hermine”, the Massachusetts Emergency Management Agency tweeted Sunday.
However, Hermine is not expected to make a second landfall, forecasters said. New York City beaches would remain closed to swimmers on Labor Day and possibly Tuesday, the city said.
Life-threatening storm surges are possible in the next 12 hours in the Hampton Roads, Virginia, area, the center said.
Because climate change has caused sea levels to rise as much as a foot, the storm surges pushed by Hermine could be even more damaging, climate scientists say.
The winds and rain were so strong Saturday in North Carolina that all bridges to the Outer Banks were closed following a deadly accident over the intracoastal waterway.
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He also cautioned that residents should have food and water in their homes and asked people to clear their yards of objects that could go flying in high winds.
