Syracuse, N.Y. -- The remnants of Hurricane Beryl are expected to reach Upstate New York later this week and deliver heavy, potentially flooding rain.
The National Weather Service is already issuing alerts about possible flash flooding, especially in Central and eastern New York. More than 2 inches of rain could fall in a wide swath of Upstate, and thunderstorms could drop torrential rain in pockets throughout Upstate Wednesday and Thursday.
“Rainfall rates greater than 2 inches an hour will lead to isolated to scattered flash flooding,” the weather service said in a special briefing. “Stronger storms Wednesday afternoon could produce damaging winds and weak tornadoes.”
There is a great deal of uncertainty about the forecast, with Beryl just hitting Texas today as a category 1 hurricane. The center of the storm is forecast to arc northeast, passing over southern Michigan Tuesday and reaching New York Wednesday morning. That path could change as the week evolves.
While widespread rain is highly likely in Upstate New York, what’s not known yet is where the heaviest bands of rain will roll through. In those bands, more than 3 inches could fall in 24 hours, enough to cause flash flooding of creeks and streets, the weather service said. The area at risk for that much rain stretches from the Finger Lakes to the Adirondacks foothills, and from the Southern Tier to the Tug Hill Plateau.
“Once you start getting 2 or 3 inches of rain, you’ve got to start worrying about flooding, at least on the smaller creeks,” said Tom Kines, a meteorologist with Accuweather,
July has been virtually rain-free so far. Syracuse has recorded just one one-hundredth of an inch, on July 1.
If the low pressure at the center of Beryl passes to the west, as expected, that could interact with a separate warm front to cause a few tornadoes, the weather service said.
“It would not be very difficult to get some quick spin ups with the showers and thunderstorms that form in the late morning into the evening on Wednesday,” according to the weather service.
Before the rain arrives, Upstate will see two days with temperatures approaching 90 degrees. The heat index today and Tuesday could reach into the upper 90s.
The clouds and rain from Beryl will knock those temperatures back down into the low to mid 80s, Kines said.
Upstate New York is expected to see heavy rain from the remnants of Tropical Storm Beryl late this week, possibly enough to cause flash flooding.National Weather Service