After a night of flooding rains, South Florida residents emerged on Thursday to discover swamped roads, a closed pier, downed trees and snapped power lines while remaining under high wind alerts. Throughout South Florida, more than 110,000 were without power at dawn, a number that fell to 84,000 in the late morning.
Broward County took the biggest soaking of the South Florida region. According to the National Weather Service, Lauderdale-By-The-Sea received the most rain, at 13.31 inches. Oakland Park, Wilton Manors, Cooper City, Ft Lauderdale Executive Airport and Pembroke Pines all received over 12 inches. Weston picked up 10.36 inches and Miramar 9.89 inches.
Palm Beach County fared a bit better. Delray Beach topped the list with 6.19 inches. Golden Lakes and Boca Raton both received just over 4 inches, and Jupiter was hit with just over 3 inches.
Miami-Dade County was hard-hit as well: Biscayne Park got 10.12 inches and Coral Gables and Coconut Grove were both soaked with just over 9 inches of rain.
Flood watches in the area have been canceled, and the storm warning over the Atlantic changed to a gale warning. A wind advisory remains in effect until 7 p.m. Thursday for the coastal and metropolitan areas of Broward, Miami-Dade and Palm Beach counties, with forecasters predicting gusts from 25 to 35 mph possible. Tree limbs and power lines may be down because of the overnight wind and rains, so extra care should be used when driving.
During a National Weather Service briefing on Thursday, meteorologist Sammy Hadi said that wind gusts over the region reach 50 to 60 mph, with the highest gusts reaching near hurricane strength. Wind speeds at Port Everglades topped out at 75 mph, Government Cut in Miami saw 75 mph and Dania Pier reached 70 mph.
High winds will continue to produce dangerous marine conditions, such as rip currents and high surf, through Friday, he said, and relatively high tides will slow the drainage process through Friday as well.
The area of low pressure that produced last night’s tempest, with wind at near hurricane strength, was not considered a tropical system, because tropical systems pick up their energy from warm water, Hadi said. “This system was connected to a frontal boundary,” he said. “There was a gradient between warm and cold air, so it wasn’t tropical.”
Hadi said the system is moving off to the northeast. Sunshine is beginning to peek through the clouds and dry air will be moving in through the weekend.
Still, Broward County Public Schools, after-school activities and district offices are closed Thursday. Broward College also canceled campus activities a “thorough assessment of its campuses and centers,” it said online.
Seventeenth Judicial Circuit Court Chief Judge Jack Tuter said in an email late Wednesday that courthouses will also be closed Thursday. Palm Beach County and Miami-Dade County Public Schools remain open Thursday.
FPL is reporting 15,605 sites without power in Broward County, 50,098 in Miami-Dade and 19,026 in Palm Beach County.
Wednesday’s storms broke many railroad crossings, according to the Florida East Coast Railway, causing one train in Boca Raton on the tracks at Yamato Road to briefly halt, spurring traffic congestion in the area. The rail line is sending people out to fix the broken crossings.
Brightline is reporting service delays due to the weather.
Traffic lights were down and sand covered State Road A1A in Fort Lauderdale as strong winds battered the coast.
Some of the areas hit hard on Wednesday included those who experienced the bizarre, unprecedented flood in April.
While the nearly 26 inches of rain that fell in Fort Lauderdale in a matter of hours and caused severe flash flooding in April is not in the forecast, the scene Thursday is worse than what Pompano Beach was pummeled with in April, said Pompano Beach city spokeswoman Sandra King. The city’s tennis center and dog park are both underwater and are closed, along with the pickleball courts and aquatic centers are closed, and the Fischer Family Pier saw significant damage and is closed until further notice.
After constant downpours Wednesday, forecasters said “a very well-organized and concentrated area” of heavy to, in some areas, extreme rainfall was continuing over the area late into the night, reaching between an inch and 2 inches an hour. “Significant and locally life-threatening” flash flooding in some areas was expected to continue until Thursday morning.
Between early Wednesday morning and about 8 Wednesday night, 4.2 inches of rain was recorded at the Fort Lauderdale Executive Airport, according to NWS Miami preliminary data. Pembroke Pines recorded 3.3 inches Wednesday, while areas of Miami-Dade recorded between 2.5 and 3.4 inches. West Palm Beach recorded just over an inch.
Totals for the Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport measured 3.55 inches, the airport in Pompano Beach got 4.5 inches and Miami International Airport saw 8.8 inches. The highest total in the region was 12.55 inches at Fort Lauderdale Executive Airport, followed by 10.47 inches at North Perry Airport in Hollywood.
The area of greatest concern as of Wednesday afternoon was near the Fort Lauderdale International Airport — the same area that was hammered in April, resulting in the airport being closed for two days, and highly destructive flooding in nearby Edgewood, River Oaks, Shady Banks and Melrose Park.
Maritza Pagan, 49, lives in Melrose Park, an area hard hit by the record-breaking April flooding. She and her family were upended then when the rains flooded their neighborhood and displaced her and her husband, children and grandchildren for about a month.
“I had to do everything pretty much to rebuild,” Pagan said. “We had to move to two homes, one of our cars flooded. My kids were in two different places, we have one vehicle, we were dealing with my kids and my grandkids, we were taking six kids to six schools.”
Pagan said she put up sandbags Wednesday, just as she did in April, but is anxious about the next 24 hours of rain.
“Needless to say, I’ve been extremely worried,” she said. “I’m just praying that nothing happens.”
As of Tuesday, a total of 101 inches of rain has been recorded in the Fort Lauderdale area since January, NWS Miami meteorologist Ana Torres-Vazquez said.
Between January and December 2022, eastern Broward County recorded just under 65 total inches of rain for the year, according to South Florida Water Management District data.
Fort Lauderdale City Commissioner John Herbst said the city’s pumping trucks, which essentially vacuum water off roads, have also been patrolling the areas. One pump was at the ready in the area of Melrose Manors and five in the area of River Oaks and Edgewood, Herbst’s office said in a news release.
There is also a risk of coastal flooding due to king tides during morning rush hour this week.
“The flood watch was put out in advance because we’re in the new moon phase,” said National Weather Service meteorologist Will Redman. “There is potential for coastal flooding in general, and if we have rain on top of that it could worsen things.”
“When you’ve got saturated ground, then you get rain on top of it, there’s nowhere for the rain water to go,” said Herbst. “That’s why we get more standing rain water right now than you might otherwise have if it were not a king tide.”
The National Weather Service has issued hazardous weather condition advisories for the Hollywood area through Thursday into Friday.
Periods of moderate to locally heavy rainfall are possible today across the east coast, which may lead to additional flooding concerns in urban and poor drainage locations.
High tides are expected at 10:03 a.m. and 10:03 p.m. Thursday, and at 10:52 a.m. and 10:57 p.m. Friday.
Rip currents will also be a concern along the beaches.
Earlier this month, the weather service called for a relatively wet winter in South Florida, due in part to the influence of El Niño, which causes the subtropical jet stream to shift to the south, carrying moisture from the Pacific, and picking up even more moisture over the Gulf of Mexico while steering storms across the southern U.S.