While the county typically sees flooding during nor’easter storms, the current situation more unsafe than usual.
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This blizzard has another hazard besides the snow, sleet and strong winds its bringing to the East Coast: flooding. The coastal flooding, especially New Jersey, will emerge as perhaps the biggest longer-term impact from this blizzard, which resembles a tropical storm (with snow). “And then when it’s unsafe, maybe go back in for a minute”.
– New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said the snowfall for parts of his state has been upped “to about 16 to 24 inches”. Temperatures in many areas should climb at least a few degrees above freezing, allowing the cleanup to begin.
During a Thursday press conference from the National Weather Service’s forecasting center in College Park, Maryland, NWS director Louis Uccellini said several factors are uniting to create a historic blizzard, with extremely high winds, hazardous inland flooding and even whiteout snow, which causes severe loss of visibility, and thundersnow, which is snowfall accompanied by thunder and lightning. Officials worked to prepare the region week, building up sand dunes and keeping first responders on stand by, only three years after Hurricane Sandy devastated the area.
The Weather Channel has named the storm Winter Storm Jonas.
New Jersey’s state climatologist says storm surge levels in the northern part of the Jersey shore from this weekend’s coastal storm won’t be as bad as they were during Superstorm Sandy. In Lewes, Delaware, it reached its second highest water level on record at 9.15 feet, resulting in a storm surge of more than 4 feet.
Former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg is taking early steps toward launching a independent campaign for president, seeing a potential path to the White House amid the rise of Republican Donald Trump and Democrat Bernie… Human-caused climate change will contribute about an additional foot to this week’s flooding event, and it may make the difference for whether the subway system floods again or not.
A blizzard watch will be in effect in New York City, Long Island and parts of New Jersey from Saturday morning until Sunday afternoon, authorities said.
New Jersey Transit, earlier on Saturday, suspended all bus, rail and light rail service.
The ultimate level of flooding will come down to slight variations in the wind direction.
A coastal flood watch means that conditions are favorable for the development of moderate or major tidal flooding.
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While it would only take a 1.5-foot storm surge at the time of Saturday morning’s high tide to see flooding, they say the storm very well could cause a 2-to-5-foot surge and significant waves.
