Hermine lingers offshore, bringing rough waves, rip currents

A tropical storm warning remained in effect for the coast of Long Island from Fire Island Inlet to Port Jefferson Harbor, from New Haven to Sagamore Beach in Connecticut, Block Island, Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket.

As Tropical Storm Hermine weakened Monday in the Atlantic offshore NY, forecasters already were eyeing a new storm in the deep ocean off Africa, with the threat of a third behind it.

Post Tropical Cyclone Hermine moved up the East Coast Sunday, stalling out at sea further east than expected, but was still predicted to affect Labor Day plans with risky surf and possible tropical storm conditions for some areas of the northeast.

It’s now targeting the eastern seaboard from Maryland to MA.

Tropical-storm-force winds extend from the center as far as 230 miles, with maximum sustained winds near 70 mph and even higher gusts. “Don’t think that nothing is going to happen, because something is going to happen”. The beach patrol in Rehoboth Beach said they had to rescue a young man on Sunday after he got caught in the rough surf. Enough dry air will be in place that we will have a partly sunny sky.

“That was so scary”, Barb Willis said. Water may be one to two feet higher than normal at high tide, mainly due to the high waves.

The couple, both in their 60s, said they knew the storm would blow over, even as friends texted their concerns.

“People from NY and New Jersey are kind of stuck here (during bad weather), so they can still come”, if forecasts don’t play out as predicted, Khan said.

Long Island authorities urged people to evacuate the summer getaway known as Fire Island to avoid any storm surge and coastal flooding.

When Hermine ripped into St. Marks in Florida’s Big Bend region just before 2 a.m. Friday, it became the first hurricane to come ashore in the state since Wilma struck 11 years ago.

The Anclote River northwest of Tampa was forecast to go well into major flood stage Sunday afternoon.

The National Weather Service was predicting sustained winds of about 30 miles per hour with gusts up to 50 miles per hour in Cape Cod, Massachusetts and the nearby island of Nantucket, powerful enough to knock down small trees. It’s now working its way up the coast at six miles per hour, according to the National Hurricane Center.

“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 said the one-foot rise that New York City has experienced over the past century caused an additional 25 square miles and several billions of dollars of damage with Superstorm Sandy.

On Saturday, high winds tipped over an 18-wheeler, killing its driver and shutting down the USA 64 bridge in North Carolina’s Outer Banks.