Saturday’s torrential downpour may cause flooding and travel delays for NYC

Metro

By Deirdre Bardolf

It’s a wash!

New York is in for a wet and windy weekend as a massive storm drenches the Big Apple for 12 hours straight on Saturday.

The spring deluge is expected to dump up to 3.5 inches of rain on the metro area, with higher amounts possible in some parts of the city, bringing the threat of flooding. The National Weather Service has a wind advisory and a flood watch up for the entire tri-state area.

“It’s going to be a complete washout,” said Fox Weather meteorologist Cody Braud. “If you’re going to be out and about, you’re dealing with this all day.”

Mayor Adams warned of traffic delays and widespread minor flooding — particularly around properties and buildings — in a post on X Friday.

The weather snarled traffic at the city’s airports, with JFK seeing delays up to 1 hour for departures and increasing before noon, according to flight tracking service FlightAware. JFK had 72 delays and 7 cancellations.

There were no cancellations, but delays were also piling up at LaGuardia, where some flights were up to two hours late, and Newark Liberty, where flights were up to three hours late.

The storm stretches the length of the East Coast, from the southern tip of Florida north to Maine, where it could dump up to a foot of snow. Several inches of snow was also expected to blanket much of Upstate New York and Vermont.

The downpour is expected to continue in the metro area through Saturday evening, with the winds picking up overnight into Sunday. Gusts could reach a blustering 50 mph.

Unsecured objects will be swept up, tree limbs could be blown down and a few power outages may occur, the NWS cautioned.

A wind advisory is in effect through 2 a.m. Sunday for the five boroughs and Long Island, along with southern Connecticut, northeast New Jersey, Westchester.

It’s more than just typical spring showers, Braud noted, as a “pesky” system that soaked Miami steams north. “But we just have to make it through till Sunday, which will be pretty nice,” he said

Saturday’s high of 53 degrees will drop about five degrees for a breezy but sunny and clear Sunday. Temperatures will hit 60 later in the week with rain expected to return.

The nasty first weekend of spring extends into the Upper Midwest, which is in for potentially the worst spring snowstorm in five years, Braud said, where over a foot of snow may fall.

Widespread winter weather alerts are in effect across the region with blizzard conditions possible along the shore of Lake Superior in Minnesota.