Mother Nature is not done with South Florida. Another round of severe storms expected
Mother Nature hit South Florida hard the last two days with torrential rain, strong wind gusts and pea-sized hail.
And she’s not through yet. Forecasters expect another line of storms to push through Tuesday afternoon.
“It could be similar to today,” said meteorologist Molly Merrifield. “We’re in for another round tomorrow.”
That round is expected to include the possibility of nickel-sized hail and wind gusts up to 55 mph, the National Weather Service in Miami warns.
Flooding, on streets already saturated with rain and downed trees and palm fronds, is likely, in east coast metro areas, the weather service said. Given the expected later afternoon start of this messy business — read: rush hour — “travel disruptions due to numerous lane closures and a few impassable roads” could be an unpleasant possibility, according to the weather service.
If this sounds familiar, that’s because we saw the same weather pattern on Monday.
The bad weather began Sunday, when windy, lightning-laden storms struck across the region in the late afternoon into early evening. The storms prompted weather warnings and flood advisories and some FPL customers lost power for hours.
Even earlier — late last week — the region was feeling the effects of a now dissipated, pre-hurricane-season wet tropical disturbance that churned in the Atlantic near the Bahamas as it made its way off the coast of the Carolinas.
Forecasters said this week will be reminiscent of summer, with afternoon storms expected daily.
Rip currents are also expected to increase later in the week, into the weekend, forecasters say.
The storms rolled through a little earlier Monday, but packed a punch, Merrifield said.
Areas in both Miami-Dade and Broward saw several inches of rain and strong wind gusts. A gust of 45 mph was recorded at the Miami-Opa Locka Executive Airport, according to the National Weather Service. Trees and limbs were down in Kendall and Hialeah and other South Florida neighborhoods.
Some 3,000 FPL customers were without power Monday evening, according to Miami Herald news partner CBS4. Still others took to social media to report of fried modems and computers courtesy of lightning strikes.
Weather also played a role in an accident that left an 18-wheeler on its side on Florida’s Turnpike near Southwest Eighth Street, according to the Florida Highway Patrol.
The one bright, hot, spot: the Florida Keys. The island chain was all blue skies with a reported high in the mid-90s in Marathon Monday afternoon.
By 8 p.m., most of the storms in Miami-Dade and Broward counties had already moved through.
“The worst of it is definitely done for the day,” Merrifield said.
Until Tuesday.
This story was originally published May 6, 2019 at 2:59 PM.
