Andy Newman, NYT, 9:49 am
Morning Floods, Then a Pause, With a Deluge to Come
The flooding in New York City’s coastal and riverfront neighborhoods that accompanied this morning’s high tides will recede a bit as the day wears on, but it is only a dress rehearsal for tonight’s surge, the National Weather Service said.
Forecasters are expecting a 6-to-11-foot surge to hit the city at high tide around 8 p.m. – the highest surge of the entire storm cycle.
“What we’re seeing now is just the beginning of what we’re going to be seeing worse, later,” said David Stark, a meteorologist at the weather service office in Upton, N.Y.
At the Battery at the bottom of Manhattan, the water level was eight and a half feet at Monday morning’s high tide, considered moderate flooding. Tonight at the Battery, Mr. Stark said, “We may see water level of 10 or 12 feet which is a major flooding category.”
Tonight’s high tides will coincide with Hurricane Sandy making landfall in southern New Jersey. “All the water the hurricane is bringing will be pushed on-shore right at high tide,” Mr. Stark said. Tonight is also the peak tide time in the lunar cycle (full moon is at 3:49 p.m. Eastern time on Monday,