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Beryl’s remnants forecast to bring tornadoes, flooding to the Northeast [1]
['Matthew Cappucci']
Date: 2024-07-10
Two days after Beryl slammed into the Texas coast and roared through Houston, killing at least six people, nearly 1.7 million customers remain without power in Texas amid oppressive heat and humidity. And Beryl is not done bringing hazardous weather. While just a shell of its former self, Beryl’s remnant low pressure swirl is sweeping through the eastern Great Lakes en route to Canada, unloading heavy rainfall in parts of the northeastern United States on Wednesday while heightening the potential for tornadoes.
Flood watches blanket northern New York, New Hampshire, Vermont and Maine through Thursday morning, where moisture wrapping around Beryl’s remnants are expected to cause torrential downpours. Training, or the repeated movement of showers and thunderstorms over the same areas, could dump a quick 3 to 4 inches in spots. Rainfall rates approaching 3 inches per hour are possible in the heaviest storms.
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To the south — between Pennsylvania and central New York — more scattered thunderstorms are possible; any of them could produce quick-hitting tornadoes. Beryl’s remnants are replete with spin, and any thunderstorms that grow tall enough will encounter changing winds with altitude and rotate.
Beryl has been a tornado factory. On Monday, the National Weather Service issued 115 tornado warnings for parts of eastern Texas and the Lower Mississippi Valley, the most on record for a single day in July. There were reports of at least 16 tornadoes.
More tornado warnings were issued on Tuesday, though only one rotating storm spawned repeated tornadoes. It tracked through western Kentucky and southwest Indiana, causing severe damage to the town of Mount Vernon.
Beryl made landfall around 4 a.m. Central time Monday morning as a Category 1 hurricane near Matagorda, Tex. Winds at the coastline gusted over 100 mph and pushed a surge of greater than 5 feet inland. Parts of Houston recorded a foot of rain and winds over 80 mph.
Wednesday’s tornado risk
The National Weather Service Storm Prediction Center has taken the unusual step of drawing a Level 3 out of 5 risk for severe weather, namely tornadoes, for central New York State, including Syracuse and Ithaca. It’s the first time that some areas there have been in that risk tier of tornadoes. A Level 2 risk surrounds that zone, extending from southern Vermont into Northern Virginia and includes Buffalo, Baltimore and Washington, D.C.
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The risk of brief tropical tornadoes will likely be most powerful in southern New York, where a warm front sets up and stalls. Warm fronts impart extra spin on storms, helping them rotate more robustly near the surface.
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Storms will probably be most numerous and intense Wednesday afternoon and evening before easing.
Any tornadoes will probably form quickly and be obscured by heavy rainfall.
Flood potential
In northern New York and New England, the primary concern will be flash flooding with the heaviest rain anticipated Wednesday afternoon and night. The Weather Prediction Center has drawn a Level 3 out of 4 risk of flash flooding and excessive rainfall. Within the Adirondack Mountains, there is a 50 to 80 percent likelihood of 2 or more inches of rain. Some places have a 30 percent chance of more than 3 inches of rain. Considering how quickly the rain will come down, flash floods are a considerable threat.
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The heaviest rain will last 8 to 12 hours in some locales. There will be a sharp cutoff from northern New England, where rain will be plentiful, to southern zones, where relatively little is expected to fall. Southern Vermont and New Hampshire, for example, probably won’t see much.
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[1] Url:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2024/07/10/beryl-tornadoes-flooding-northeast-newyork/
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