Tropical Storm — Southern Queens, New York

2020-08-04 · Southern Queens, New York

Event narrative

A 60 yr old man was killed in the Briarwood section of Queens near the intersection of 84th Drive and 143rd Street near Smedley Street from a tree falling on his vehicle at 1204 pm LST.

JFK International Airport reported a maximum sustained wind of 51 mph at 1231 pm LST and a peak wind gust of 70 mph at 1225 pm LST.

These type of winds across the borough resulted in numerous trees and tree limbs being downed, power outages, damages to homes and automobiles, and disruption to mass transit. The NYC Office of Emergency Management reported 68,074 power outages across the borough. NYCEM has calculated property damages of $11,006,454 in the borough.

Water levels slightly exceeded the minor flood level of 7.5 ft above MLLW at the Jamaica Bay at Inwood tidal gauge Tuesday evening, but the highest storm surge of 5 ft did not coincide with high tide and was during a period of low astronomical tides.

Wider weather episode

Category 1 Hurricane Isaias with maximum sustained winds of 85 mph, made landfall near Ocean Isle Beach, NC at 11:10 pm on August 3rd. Isaias' intensity weakened back to Tropical Storm strength as its forward speed increased to near 30 mph early morning of August 4th.

The center of Isaias passed about 65 miles west of New York City at 3 pm on August 4, 2020. Tropical storm force winds extended well east of the center of circulation. The highest sustained wind speeds ranged from 35 to 55 mph, with gusts 60 to 80 mph, across Long Island, NYC and portions of the Lower Hudson Valley, resulting in widespread wind damage and power outages.

A storm surge as high as 3 to 5 ft across the Lower NY Harbor and the south shore of western Long Island, occurred during low tide, which only resulted in localized minor coastal flood benchmarks being reached in these spots. Greater impacts were realized along the ocean beachfront from 8 to 12 ft surf causing significant beach erosion and flooding. Additionally, rough surf of 4 to 6 ft on far western Long Island Sound caused damage to marinas acrosscoastal Westchester County.

Rainfall amounts of 1/2 to 4 1/2 inches were observed across the Lower Hudson Valley, highest amounts across western areas, with 1/2 to 1 1/2 inches observed across NYC, and generally less than an inch across Long Island.

One death resulted from the high winds:

A 60 yr old man was killed in the Briarwood section of Queens near the intersection of 84th Drive and 143rd Street near Smedley Street from a tree falling on his vehicle.

One injury resulted from the high winds:

A woman was critically injured when a falling tree branch hit her while walking on Dumont Avenue in Brownsville Brooklyn.

Preliminary damage cost estimates for Public Assistance are:

The number of power outages statewide peaked around 920000 on August 4-5th, with many outages lasting several days to a week. The state lost around xx percent of their tree population.

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 917890. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.