A tropical storm warning has been extended until further notice to include all New Jersey and NY coastal areas, including the Bronx, Brooklyn, Manhattan, Long Island, Queens, Staten Island and Westchester.
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Hermine made landfall as a hurricane in Florida earlier this week before weakening to a tropical storm.
Although Hermine is no longer a hurricane-force storm after hitting Florida earlier this weekend, tropical storm-force wind gusts of 40 to 60 miles per hour, rough seas and significant coastal flooding are still expected along the mid-Atlantic and southern New England coasts on Monday, according to Accuweather.
Its winds have since picked up, however, and the weather service said Sunday that it “is expected to be at or near hurricane strength during the next 48 hours”.
AccuWeather Meteorologist Evan Duffey said coastal damage could be severe because Hermine is moving slowly, meaning storm conditions will persist for a longer period of time than would normally be expected.
As of midday Sunday, Hermine was about 520 kilometers east-southeast of Ocean City, Maryland in the mid-Atlantic region – far out to sea, but close enough to be pummeling coastal areas with heavy rain, riptides and storm surges of up to 1.5 meters.
Hermine strafed the Southern states of Florida, Georgia and SC on Friday as it quickly weakened back to tropical storm strength, and thrashed North Carolina before sliding back over the Atlantic on Saturday.
“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. “Don’t think that nothing is going to happen, because something is going to happen”.
Almost 80,000 utility customers in Florida were still without electricity, according to the Florida Division of Emergency Management. Emergency managers issued mandatory evacuations for some low-lying mobile home parks and apartment buildings.
“We are already experiencing more and more flooding due to climate change in every storm”, said Michael Oppenheimer, a geosciences professor at Princeton University.
Michael Mann at Pennsylvania State University noted that this century’s 0.3-metre sea-level rise in New York City meant 65 more square kilometres flooded during Superstorm Sandy, causing billions more in damage.
Another man died in North Carolina when his tractor-trailer overturned Saturday morning amid strong winds on a bridge near Dare County, the Tyrrell County Sheriff’s Office said.
The couple, both in their 60s, said they knew the storm would blow over, even as friends texted their concerns.
In Virginia Beach, Virginia, Seth Broudy, 45, owner of the Seth Broudy School of Surf, said high winds and tides flooded parking lots by his home on Saturday. In Florida, a homeless man in Marion County was hit by a falling tree and was killed.
Masbahul Islam, a pedicab driver who has worked in Atlantic City for six years, said the Labor Day crowd is much smaller than in years past. “And if your power was out, you kind of bounced around to find a restaurant or grocery store that still had power”. The water and wind receded, but the ocean remained unsafe on Saturday afternoon, he said.
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Long Island authorities urged people to evacuate the summer getaway known as Fire Island to avoid any storm surge and coastal flooding.
