From Past Floods to Future Hurricanes: Your Complete Weather Briefing. Runs a little long but some great info!

Episode Transcript

Speaker 0 (00:00):
Hi, this is meteorologist Steve Pelletierian
.
I'm the weatherman.
Thanks for checking intotheweathermanpodcom On your
Wednesday.
It's the 13th day of the monthof August 2025.
Lots to talk about.
Today we're going to cover thehistorical 70-year anniversary
of the Delaware River floods.
Also taking a look at TropicalStorm Erin that's now moving

(00:21):
westward, just probably about.
It looks like about 400, 500miles to the west of the African
coast and it looks like it'sgoing to continue moving
westward and then start to headnorth and eastern We'll talk
about in just a minute Probablygoing to become a hurricane then
a major hurricane too by theend of this work week.
First weather across theNortheast card for today we're

(00:42):
just going to have sunny hotweather continues.
First weather across theNortheast card for today we're
just going to have sunny hotweather continues.
There's about a 50% chance oflate-day thunderstorms for
Philly, new York and the Bostonarea, especially later day and
evening.
Also a chance of some showersand thunderstorms during the
daytime on Thursday.
There's a weather front that'smoving through the high pressure
.
Behind it, not a particularlycool high pressure cell, but it
will represent some drierweather moving in for Friday

(01:03):
into this weekend, then back tosome heat and humidity by later
Sunday and Monday of next week.
So for the Northeast card, justexpect daytime highs 90 to 95,
nighttime lows 70 to 75.
Scattered showers andthunderstorms both on Wednesday
and Thursday.
Drier, slightly cooler weatherfor Friday and Saturday, then

(01:23):
back to the heat on Sunday.
Of course there's a report fromour pal Jeff Morrison.
Jeff has always been interestedin weather since he's been a
small kid and has beencollecting New Jersey weather
data for 50 years or more andhas been providing local
observations to us here at IONWeather since 1979.
A good friend too.
Jeff has been a longtime memberof the North Jersey Weather
Observers, along with a localCOCORAS Community Collaborative

(01:44):
Rain, hail and Snow Networkobserver that are headquartered
out in Colorado, and he does itfor Somerset County, new Jersey,
providing valuableprecipitation data on his
nationwide network.
Jeff has a full weather stationat his home and enjoys writing
articles on a variety of weathertopics for the general audience
, and that's what we're talkingabout.
It's a little bit moreappropriate for the Mid-Atlantic

(02:07):
and Northeast and that's the70th anniversary of the major
flooding in the Delaware RiverYesterday we talked about first.
It was Hurricane Connie in 1955and then Hurricane Diane, and
the combination of those twomade a tremendous amount of
rainfall in the Delaware Basin.
By August 20th of 1955, theDelaware Basin was well above

(02:31):
the 22-foot flood stage,reaching a crest of 44.4 feet in
Easton, the highest everrecorded.
Now Easton found itselfsurrounded by water, completely
surrounded.
The town of Easton,pennsylvania, right on to
Delaware, low-lyingneighborhoods were inundated
with the muddy, fast-movingcurrents and if you've ever seen
a Delaware, when it's moving itcomes down very, very quickly.

(02:52):
A similar situation existedacross the river in Phillipsburg
, new Jersey, where the SouthMain Street area close to the
riverbank was totally submerged.
Homes and businesses in bothplaces were damaged or destroyed
.
Some roads were washed away anddebris filled the flooded
streets At the height of theflooding.
Parts of both communities wereonly accessible by boat, both in
Easton and in Phillipsburgthey're right across from each

(03:14):
other and separated by theDelaware.
Further north upstream, thePortland-Columbia Pedestrian
Bridge, built in 1831 andreportedly the oldest wooden
covered bridge in the US at thetime, was totally destroyed and
US at the time was totallydestroyed and the bridge debris
traveled down the river beforegetting lodged at the Easton
Phillipsburg Free Bridge, makingmatters worse, ultimately
collapsing a 110-foot centersection of that bridge into the

(03:37):
river Again.
That was in August 1955 inPennsylvania and New Jersey
eastern Pennsylvania, westernNew Jersey.
In all four of the 12 bridgesthat span the Delaware River,
from the Delaware water gap toTrenton, totally collapsed.
Elsewhere the flooding sparkeddramatic rescues of thousands of
residents and summer visitorsto the area in the nearby

(03:58):
Poconos as they tried to get outof the way of the water.
There was a reported OperationKid Lift where military
helicopters airlifted hundredsof these kids from summer camps
and from the islands on theriver.
In the Poconos One newspaperreported inundated that south of
Frenchtown 14 helicoptersevacuated 600 boy and girl

(04:19):
scouts and campfire girls fromthose three islands.
Can you imagine that 14helicopters, campfire girls from
those three islands?
Can you imagine that 14helicopters, 600 boys and girls
because of this tremendous floodin eastern Pennsylvania and
Phillipsburg along the DelawareActually lots of places along
the Delaware totally floodedthis month in 1955.
We'll have more information onthis in tomorrow's report.

(04:40):
Getting back to Tropical StormErin, you know maximum winds
close to 50 miles per hour.
It's going to become ahurricane, probably by Wednesday
afternoon.
It'll probably become a majorhurricane that's over Category 3
sometime by, probably later onThursday or Thursday night, and
then it will continue to traveleastward.
The European model forecastmodel actually brings this storm

(05:04):
just north of the Bahamas,south of Bermuda, in that little
area around the BermudaTriangle, and then sort of turns
it towards the north.
Hopefully that will happen, butthe model by, let's say, the
22nd of August, next Friday, aweek from this Friday, they're
expecting a storm on theEuropean model to be located,

(05:25):
let's say, about 500 to 600miles due east of Virginia Beach
, virginia, and it's going to besafely offshore.
It so says the European model.
At this time it's too early totell, but let's make sure that
we note that with the Europeanmodel.
Tomorrow we're going to look atthe GF fast.
We're also going to take a lookat what the National Hurricane

(05:46):
Service is using and wherethey're projecting this storm to
be over the next five to tendays.
Weather-wise, if you aretraveling, just want to get
close to that, you know we havethose showers and thunderstorms
up along the whole easternseaboard.
Uh, that's because of theapproaching weather front that
we'll be going through, probablysometime during the overnight
wednesday into thursday.
Doesn't look like a lot ofheavy rains associated with it,

(06:09):
but every time you have athunderstorm you can always have
some tremendous downpours, butweather-wise for aviation
usually can slow things downquite a bit, especially during
the middle to later afternoonhours.
So if you're traveling duringthe summertime, try to avoid the
middle to later afternoon hours.
Fly early morning, first flightout or late at night.
Even if delayed at night,flights many times will be

(06:29):
delayed or if not canceledbecause of what happens during
the afternoon.
So the best thing to do isalways to fly in the early
morning.
I know it's tough getting up,but it's really well worth it
when you get to where you wantto be.
Scattered showers andthunderstorms are going to cause
some delays in New York,philadelphia, dc, baltimore and,
to a lighter extent, up in theBoston area.
We are looking at scatteredshowers and thunderstorms during

(06:51):
the afternoon hours inCharlotte and in Atlanta.
Although Atlanta in the morninghours shouldn't be too bad,
it's later afternoon that we'regoing to have those
thunderstorms.
Thunderstorms reappearingacross the Florida Peninsula, as
they will around Houston, butnot so bad there.
Worst of the rain is going tobe from Louisiana.
They've been getting a lot ofrain the last several days right
along the Gulf Coast, louisiana, alabama, mississippi and the

(07:12):
western panhandle of Florida,and also in Dallas.
Fort Worth Looks like aclearing trend for Chicago,
minneapolis, st Paul, some smokyweather moving down out of
central Canada because of thefires there.
Generally dry conditions acrossthe West Coast, la, san Diego,
san Francisco, even up toPortland and Seattle.
The weather will not be aproblem flying in and out of
those places.
Any delays you have could bebecause of well, the FAA, or

(07:34):
equipment delays or computerdelays.
So keep that in mind.
It's always a possibility.
But that's the weather picture.
I'm meteorologist, stevePelletier, and I am the
weatherman.
Hope you have a great day today.
Talk to you first thing onThursday.
See you then.