Florence Throws Thunderstorms & Subway Waterfalls Our Way

New York City was spared the damage wrought by Hurricane Florence: Despite initial reports that she might sweep in to deluge our primary elections on Thursday, she instead beat a path of destruction toward the Carolinas, where she dumped a devastating volume of rain. The worst side effects New Yorkers have seen are a slight dampening of their secret luxury picnic on Monday night and scattered thunderstorms on Tuesday. Truly, nothing to complain about, but if you plan to go outside today, you might want to grab an umbrella. We can reportedly expect up to four inches of rain as Florence moves up the coast.

As I write this, the sun rays that peeked briefly through the window have been obliterated by a rapidly darkening sky. The rain set in quickly, slanting across the city in an intense burst (accented with some startling lightning) before tapering off again. AccuWeather forecasts that this will be more or less the situation throughout the afternoon. We will spend the day marinating in Florence's soggy leftovers, with rainy weather letting up once she ships out for the Atlantic tonight or tomorrow.

Although AccuWeather's predicted one-to-four inches of precipitation seem primed to annoy commuters who would prefer not to soak themselves in subway drip, that is child's play compared to the 35 inches—or 8 trillion gallons—Florence poured on North Carolina. Now classified as a "post-tropical cyclone," the storm made landfall as a hurricane on Friday. Since then, at least 32 people have died in North Carolina, South Carolina, and Virginia. Power outages and road closures remain widespread as rising river waters contribute to flooding, and wash out liquid waste from the state's 3,000 active pig poop lagoons. The catastrophic flooding isn't finished yet, and evacuations are still in effect.

Florence herself has moved on, though, and was blustering about 105 miles west-northwest of the city early Tuesday morning, with maximum sustained wind speeds reaching 25 mph. The thunderstorms should abate by 5 p.m. or so, and by tomorrow, we'll be back in sunny, 80-degree weather. Be advised, it remains muggy out there, but you can always head to Penn Station if you need to cool off.