Flood watch ends in South Florida, as forecasters say rains are diminishing
South Florida is no longer under a flood watch as a rainy weekend begins to come to an end. Potential Tropical Cyclone One is continuing to speed away from Florida, and it might become a tropical storm.
South Florida saw heavy rain overnight into Saturday morning. The rain flooded roads in downtown Miami, Brickell and other areas in South Florida, stalling cars, stranding drivers and forcing the Publix at Mary Brickell Village shopping center to temporarily close for the day. Forecasters have been issuing flash flood warnings and flood advisories throughout the day. The tropical storm warning for the Keys was lifted at 11 a.m.
A flood watch for the region ended at 8 p.m.
Heavy rainfall is expected to diminish across South Florida and the Keys on Saturday night, according to the National Hurricane Center’s 8 p.m. advisory.
Besides flooded roads, the bad weather also messed with travel plans. Dozens of flights expected to be canceled or delayed at Miami International Airport and Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport. AAA says it also saw an uptick in service calls this weekend.
Zoo Miami and other South Florida attractions, such as The Phillip and Patricia Frost Museum of Science and Pérez Art Museum Miami closed ahead of the storm.
Other events were delayed, like the NCAA Division I College Baseball Tournament’s Coral Gables Regional, hosted by the Miami Hurricanes, which pushed back its game to later Saturday.
“It just goes to show, you don’t need a name for it to have big impacts,” said National Weather Service Meteorologist Ana Torres-Vazquez.
Jorge Saavedra, who works for the Miami-Dade County Transportation and Public Works office, said he spent all night unclogging drains in the western area of the county.
He first went out at 10:30 p.m. Friday and didn’t stop until he took a quick break at 8 a.m. Saturday, when he went to his house to shower.
At about noon, he stopped by Southwest Second Street off of Flagler Street near Sweetwater and tried to lower the flooding, which he estimated had risen to up to 3 to 4 feet in the lower parts of the road.
Docked in thigh-high black rain boots and a bright yellow knee-length rain coat, he used a shovel and a rake, as well as scoop usually reserved to fish coconuts out of canals, to clear out trash from the sewer drain. On Saturday, he and his coworker filled up five large trash bags with the debris, which included leaves, paper and other random objects the rain current had dragged.
“We’re out here working,” said Saavedra, 59, who has been doing this line of work for about 22 years. “And warning cars not to drive through.”
READ NEXT: Is your power out from the storm? What about your Internet? Here’s how to report outages
Where is the storm now and where is it going?
WATCH: See videos of the flooding streets and sinking cars in South Florida
The system, which was about 105 miles northeast of Fort Pierce, was quickly moving away from Florida, as of the NHC’s 8 p.m. advisory.
It’s center moved into the Atlantic and is expected to strengthen into Tropical Storm Alex off the state’s east coast Saturday night, according to the hurricane center.
On Monday, it should be near or to the north of Bermuda, which is under a tropical storm watch. The northwestern Bahamas are also under a tropical storm warning. If it were to strengthen into Alex, it would be the first named storm of the 2022 Atlantic hurricane season.
Tropical-storm-force winds extend outward up to 210 miles to the east of the center. A weather station at Settlement Point on Grand Bahama Island recently reported a wind gust of 36 mph, according to the hurricane center.
What type of weather did the system bring South Florida?
Because South Florida was on the wetter side of the system, also known as the “dirty” side, the region got the worst weather.
The National Weather Service of Miami says four to 10 inches of rain fell over the eastern half of South Florida in the past 24 to 36 hours.
Based on preliminary radar estimates, while South Florida didn’t see the 15 inches of rain the hurricane center predicted some isolated areas would see, parts of downtown Miami, Brickell and northern Miami-Dade saw nearly a foot of rain, according to the weather service.
Based on radar estimates, the Fort Lauderdale area in Broward County saw about six to eight inches of rain.
As forecasters expected, the rain started to diminish in the afternoon, although flooding continues to remain possible.
“The heaviest rain bands from #PTC1 have now moved offshore! There is still the chance for localized flooding with isolated showers/storms behind the system, especially over areas that have already received a lot of rain, though peeks of sun are showing on satellite,” the weather service posted on Twitter shortly after 3 p.m.
READ NEXT: When will all of this rain stop in South Florida? And what will it be like when it does?
Miami Herald Reporter Devoun Cetoute contributed to this report.
This story was originally published June 4, 2022 at 8:13 AM.
