Deadly Storms Raise Flood Risk for New York, Canceling Flights

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(Bloomberg) — A deadly cluster of severe thunderstorms is sweeping through the US Northeast, including New York City, canceling and delaying flights as well as prompting flood warnings and tornado watches. 

In Chicago, air quality has reached unhealthy levels as smoke drops down from Canadian wildfires.

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At least three people died and four are missing after flooding ripped through Bucks County, Pennsylvania north of Philadelphia on Saturday, according to AccuWeather Inc. Heavy rains will renew the threat there, as well as across the Northeast Sunday. The saturated soil from Saturday’s rain could make flooding worse Sunday, said Ashton Robinson Cook, a forecaster with the US Weather Prediction Center.

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“There is a moderate risk of excessive rain from Jersey through southwestern Maine that includes Philadelphia, New York City and Boston,” Robinson Cook said.

The storms come on the heels of a system last week that killed at least two people and cut roads and rail lines in New York’s Hudson Valley before going on to devastate Vermont. 

This weekend’s round of storms, fueled by moist air off the Atlantic, is wreaking havoc across the Northeast and threatening tornadoes from Long Island to Maine.

A widespread area, including New York, may get as much as 3 inches (7.6 centimeters) of rain, with some areas getting as much as 6 inches, the weather service said. 

Tornado watches, meaning that the dangerous storms could form, reached from the suburbs north and east of New York through Connecticut, Rhode Island, Massachusetts and into New Hampshire and southern Maine through 3 p.m. the National Weather Service said. While radar has picked up some rotation, as of 11 a.m. there hadn’t been reports of twisters touching down, Robinson Cook said.

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As of noon, 978 flights were canceled around the US, with most of those out of the New York area’s three major airports and Boston, according to FlightAware, an airline tracking service. An additional 3,165 were delayed. Across New York, 12,138 customers were without power, mainly in Sullivan and Dutchess counties, according to PowerOutage.us. 

While the Northeast grapples with severe weather, air quality has dropped to unhealthy levels in Chicago as smoke from Canadian forest fires spreads through the Great Plains and Midwest.

Residents are being urged to reduce travel Sunday, so they won’t add to the pollution. Those with respiratory and pulmonary diseases, the elderly and small children are particularly vulnerable.

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Air quality alerts have been posted across parts of Montana, Wyoming, Nebraska, Ohio, Missouri and Minnesota as well as all of Iowa, Illinois, Wisconsin, Michigan and Indiana, according to the National Weather Service. In Canada, air quality alerts have been issued in British Columbia, Alberta, Nunavut, Quebec, Saskatchewan and the Yukon, according to Environment and Climate Change Canada.

There are 881 fires burning across Canada with 573 raging out of control, according to the Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Centre. So far this year, fires have burned 10 million hectares—an area larger than the state of Maine and more than half the size of New York state.

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