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Hermine lingers, puts serious hurt on long holiday weekend

The storm was projected to dump up to 7 inches (18 cm) of rain in southeast Virginia and Atlantic coastal parts of Maryland and up to 4 inches (10 cm) in southern DE, southern and eastern New Jersey and Long Island, Brown said. “But the overall trend has backed off from record coastal flooding to major coastal flooding, and has narrowed toward one tide cycle”.

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That being said, there still is a Tropical Storm Warning in effect for the immediate shoreline, so swimming and boating is discouraged for a few days.

“We think it could become a hurricane force again”, said Dr. Rick Knabb, director of the National Hurricane Center, on Periscope.

As the storm moved northward, only cars, pickups, minivans and sport-utility vehicles without exterior cargo were allowed to cross the 17.6-mile span linking the southern tip of the Delmarva Peninsula to mainland Virginia.

But for the Merrimack Valley, the storm is likely to cause wind gusts of just 25-30 miles per hour in coming days, and up to a 40 percent chance of rain, which would be beneficial due to recent drought conditions, according to Field.

The surge was expected to extend from Virginia to New Jersey. They managed to enjoy cocktails on the beach – while getting blasted by sand. Expect winds from 5 to 10 miles per hour.

Sheila Jones, 56, of Eatontown had her Labor Day plans “washed out”, despite not having one drop of rain fall on Sunday.

“For your area, this will be pretty much a non-event”, said Glenn Field, warning coordination meteorologist for the National Weather Service in Taunton.

“This weekend would normally be a parking lot”, said Jim Derrick. “Most people looking at that from the beach said, “I don’t even want to be out there”.

New Jersey Governor Chris Christie declared a state of emergency in three coastal counties of the state, which was devastated by Superstorm Sandy in 2012.

New York City officials have extended beach closures beyond Labor Day because of continued deadly rip currents caused by storm system Hermine.

“Rip currents are caused when water coming into the beach has to make its way back out”, said Ocean City Beach Patrol Captain Butch Arbin.

Mayor Bill de Blasio says Hermine won’t be as strong as initially forecasted, but he’s still urging New Yorkers to take warnings seriously. “We do not recommend going into the water at this time”, Atlantic County Emergency Management Coordinator Vince Jones said.

“The sun may be out, but the surf is unsafe, especially for those who are inexperienced with ocean waters and rip currents”.

Long Island beaches remain closed, Gov. Andrew Cuomo said.

In Virginia Beach, the storm forced Bruce Springsteen to move a Saturday night concert to Monday. John Mayes, 56, was sleeping in a tent behind a gas station in Ocala, about 65 miles northwest of Orlando, when a tree fell onto him Thursday night, the Marion County Sheriff’s Office said.

Then “the electricity went off, and I said I hope another tree didn’t come down where they were clearing, and it did”, Panzitta told NBC station WSAV of Savannah.

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Hermine has left a trail of damage and power outages in its wake across the Southeast and East Coast, and the storm has been blamed for at least two deaths.

Coast Guard warns about approaching storm