Hurricane Isaias has regained strength and is now set to barrel up the entire East Coast, bringing with it wind and the potential for flooding.
Isaias spent some time at hurricane strength before weakening to a tropical storm after departing the Bahamas. On Monday, the system restrengthened into a Category 1 hurricane packing 75 mph sustained winds as it moved north-northeast at 16 mph, according to the National Hurricane Center’s 8 p.m. update. The storm is expected to make landfall near the border of North and South Carolina Monday night.
Parts of the Carolinas are under hurricane warnings while nearly the entire coastal stretch from South Carolina to Maine has been put under a thunderstorm warning, as Isaias is expected to gain strength as it moves onshore and begins to lose power from the warm waters of the Atlantic Ocean.
Also under a tropical storm warning are major metropolitan hubs, including Washington, D.C., New York City, and Boston. One of the biggest concerns for the mid-Atlantic region is the potential for flooding and storm surge.
#Isaias is expected to bring heavy rainfall and the risk of flash flooding from the Carolinas to New England during the next couple of days @NWSWPC https://t.co/LsPr5wAy5h pic.twitter.com/l6Qey4M4Uy
— National Hurricane Center (@NHC_Atlantic) August 3, 2020
Preparations were underway on Monday to ready flood-prone Ellicott City, Maryland, prior to Isaias’s landfall. In addition to the use of sandbags, parking in the city will be banned for 24 hours.
#Isaias Preps Underway in Ellicott City, MD tonight >>
• Parts of the city submerged in 2016 and 2018…
• This is Main Street, where the sandbags are out
• Parking will be banned on Main for 24 hours starting 11PM, in case catastrophic flooding returns @WUSA9 #DCwx pic.twitter.com/NRemSlnTeY— Mike Valerio (@MikevWUSA) August 3, 2020
Tropical storm-force winds are expected to arrive in Northern Virginia and Maryland by Tuesday morning and then into Boston by Tuesday evening as the storm picks up speed. The system, which is expected to be weakened, is forecast to enter Canada by Wednesday morning.
Tropical storm force winds will spread northward through the Hurricane and Tropical Storm Warning areas this afternoon and tonight in the Carolinas, reach the mid-Atlantic states Tuesday, and arrive in New England late Tuesday and Tuesday night #Isaias https://t.co/tW4KeFW0gB pic.twitter.com/l5TSqXvkbq
— National Hurricane Center (@NHC_Atlantic) August 3, 2020
While the hurricane, which has been dubbed by some as the Covicaine, failed to cause a substantial impact in Florida, it shut down all state-run coronavirus test sites there over the weekend in anticipation of its arrival.
The 2020 Atlantic hurricane season, which is expected to peak in September, has already broken a number of records for the amount of storms it has had. Tropical systems in the Atlantic basin are named in alphabetical order, and Isaias is the earliest ninth-named storm in history. Ninth-named storms typically come in October, near the end of the season.
The storm will impact a number of states that have been hit hard by the COVID-19 pandemic and are recovering. The United States is approaching 4.7 million confirmed cases of the respiratory illness and has experienced more than 155,000 deaths since the pandemic began.
