Tropical Storm Eta’s center is already back in the Gulf of Mexico, but the giant and raggedy storm’s wind field, which stretches 310 miles from the center, still covers half the state.
South Florida can expect another few hours of gusty winds, but the drenching rains likely won’t let up for a while, the National Weather Service said. Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach counties were under a flash flood warning for most of Monday morning, and the southern half of the state remains under a tropical storm warning.
Parts of South Florida are under a flash flood warning. Here are the dangers
The National Hurricane Center reported Monday that the bulk of the rain hit north Miami-Dade and south Broward, soaking some spots with more than 18 inches of rain. Parts of Miami Gardens and Miramar saw 15 inches overnight
Roads, parking lots and yards were flooded across the region, with the occasional downed tree. Canals overspilled their banks, including one in Miami Gardens that flooded a nearby mobile home park. A driver was hospitalized in critical condition in Lauderhill Sunday night after driving into a flooded canal. The next morning, floodwaters in the city were so high they nearly submerged fire hydrants.
Residents in Silver Lakes, just south of Pembroke Pines, woke up Monday morning to find their streets and driveways underwater. The area has seen many hurricanes come and go throughout the years without leaving much water behind, but tropical storm Eta elevated the water level of neighborhood ponds by more than two feet.
Shorecrest and Davis Harbor residents on Miami’s Upper East Side found a few fallen trees but more extensive flooding. Some roadways were blocked with water too deep to navigate. Particularly hard hit were some sections of Shorecrest, like the roadway and a park at the corner of Northeast 10th avenue and East Dixie Highway, in front of a fairly recently built subdivision of mini-mansions. The corner never flooded prior to their construction.
Also underwater were parts of David Harbor adjacent and east of Shorecrest and along Biscayne Bay. There, 84th and 85th streets were impassable. Flooding there isn’t unusual. It’s been highlighted as a trouble spot that Miami has been trying to take on for several years.
Flood water was ankle-high in the western end of Miami Beach’s Lakeview neighborhood Monday morning, as residents — and their dogs — left their homes after the worst of Eta had passed.
The neighborhood, in the city’s Mid Beach sector, has been slated for city-prescribed road-raising, but complaints from some residents led the city to postpone the plans.
As of Monday’s 7 a.m. update, Tropical Storm Eta was about 80 miles west-northwest of Key West and was headed west at 13 mph. It was still carrying 65 mph winds, but forecasters expect it will strengthen in a warm and favorable pocket of the Gulf by Tuesday afternoon.
The trough that shoved Eta into such a hard left turn and kept its center south, in the Keys, is expected to steer the storm west for the next few days before collapsing. That could leave Eta hovering in one spot through nearly Wednesday, potentially dumping even more rain on Florida.
From there, the models don’t agree on Eta’s next step, so the hurricane center said it has “low confidence” in its predictions for later in the week. For now, it expects then-Hurricane Eta to head north to menace the west coast of Florida.
Power outages, which reached highs of 50,000 for South Florida Sunday night, were back down to around 30,000 Monday morning. The numbers were highest in Miami-Dade, which had about 20,00 outages as of 9 a.m.
The National Hurricane Center is also tracking two other disturbances that could strengthen into Theta and Iota, the 29th and 30th storm of the season and breaking the 2005 record of 28 named storms.
The one that has the highest chance of forming soon (50% in the next two days) is in the middle of the Atlantic and poses no threat to land.
The other one, which has a 50% chance of forming in the next five days, is in the central Caribbean, near where Eta formed last week. The hurricane center said this tropical wave could form a tropical depression later this week as it moves west toward Central America.