Heavy rains and gusty winds from Tropical Depression IDA pummeled the New York metro region and parts of Long Island late in the day Wednesday and overnight, causing massive flooding in streets, buildings and the NYC subway system.
As with Henri two weeks ago, the local area was once again spared extreme weather, but flood watches and a flood warning remained in effect here this morning as the storm’s remnants exit to the northeast.
Five to 9 inches of rain fell across the NYC metro and northeast New Jersey, and 4 to 7 inches fell across much of southern Connecticut, northwest Long Island and the Lower Hudson Valley overnight, the National Weather Service in Upton said. Rainfall rates of 3 to 4 inches per hour were measured at the height of the event last night, the weather service said.
More than two hundred PSEG-Long Island customers are without power in Riverhead Town this morning, according to the utility. The largest local outage is affecting 155 customers in Aquebogue, in the vicinity of Church Lane south of Sound Avenue. PSEG-LI is currently reporting 263 outages affecting 7,689 customers systemwide.
Riverhead Highway Superintendent George Woodson said this morning he had received no reports of downed trees overnight.
A flood advisory remains in effect until 7:45 a.m. A flash flood watch remains in effect until 11 a.m.
A state of emergency is in effect in Suffolk, Nassau, New York City and the Lower Hudson Valley region. Gov. Kathy Hochul announced the emergency declaration early this morning in response to major flooding from “torrential rainfall” in the region.
LIRR service to Penn Station is “extremely limited” this morning, the MTA said. Eastbound service remains suspended due to the impacts of flooding, downed trees and power outages.
After Ida clears out this morning, local residents can expect mostly cloudy skies today with a slight chance of showers this morning and 15-20 mph north winds gusting up to to 35 mph, according to the weather service. It will become mostly sunny this afternoon, with highs in the mid-70s. Sunny skies and temperatures in the 70s will prevail through the Labor Day weekend, according to the National Weather Service forecast. There is a high risk of dangerous rip currents at Atlantic Ocean beaches today, the weather service said.
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