The tropical storm Elsa, which strengthened again this Thursday as its maximum sustained winds rise to 50 mph (85 km / h), continues its advance through the southeastern US with heavy rains and threatens to leave flash floods in its wake.
One of the cities that has suffered the consequences of heavy rains has been New York. Storm Elsa has hit the Big Apple hard, causing flooding at different metro stops.
Some users of public transport have recorded and shared on social networks the images that have been seen in New York. Some videos that have run like wildfire due to their spectacular nature.
Flood Threat in the Southeastern US
Elsa is located 65 miles (105 km) southwest of Norfolk, Virginia and about 240 miles (385 km) from the city of New Jersey, indicated the National Hurricane Center (NHC) of the USA in its bulletin of 20.00 local time (00.00 GMT).
The system is moving rapidly in a northeast direction at a travel speed of 21 miles per hour (33 km / h).
A large strip on the east coast of USA, which runs from the South Santee River, in South Carolina, to Sandy Hook, in New Jersey, and parts of Long Island, New Heaven, Connecticut, Massachusetts and Nactucket is under storm warning or watch by Elsa, whose winds with Tropical storm forces extend up to about 160 miles (260 km) from its center.
Elsa made landfall as a storm Wednesday in the county Taylor, on the northwest coast of Florida, and the night of that day continued through eastern Georgia, where some tornadoes were reported and rain is still expected today.
As reported by the fire department of Jacksonville, northeast of Florida, a person died on a road when a tree uprooted by the winds associated with the storm fell on top of his vehicle.
At the Submarine Kings Bay naval base in southeastern Georgia, a tornado was registered that left at least a dozen injured, some of whom had to be transferred to medical centers but none seriously, as base spokesman Scott Bassett told NBC News.
According to NHC projections, Elsa will spend tonight and tomorrow near the eastern and northeastern states of the Atlantic coast and will reach the shores of the Atlantic Canadian between Friday night and Saturday night.
“Elsa is forecast to become a post-tropical cyclone on Friday night”Said the meteorological center, based in Miami.
Forecasters expect 2-4 inches of rain (5-10 centimeters) to fall through Friday with isolated totals that could reach 6 inches (15 centimeters) across central and eastern North Carolina and into Virginia and New England.
This intense rainfall could “cause sudden flooding in urban areas and some isolated in rivers,” the NHC warned.
Fifth tropical storm of 2021 in the Atlantic, Elsa also became the first hurricane this year in the Atlantic basin when it passed through the eastern Caribbean to reach Cuba on Monday.
After weakening, it regained the category of hurricane on its way to the Florida coast of the Gulf of Mexico, on which it advanced almost in parallel since Tuesday and caused rains, winds and storm surges.