Remnants of Hurricane Nate soak Mid-Atlantic, Northeast as South cleans up

THE remnants of Hurricane Nate are delivering heavy but much-needed rain to portions of the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast on Monday.

“For some areas, Nate will bring the biggest rainfall in six to eight weeks or longer,” AccuWeather meteorologist Alex Sosnowski said. Nearly half of the northeastern US was described as “abnormally dry” in the most recent US Drought Monitor, so the rain will help ease the near-drought conditions.

But with the rain comes the threat of flooding, especially in areas where fallen autumn leaves have clogged drainage systems, AccuWeather meteorologist Rob Miller said.

The storms are also expected to cause some travel delays Monday into early Monday night, AccuWeather said. However, due to the federal holiday, traffic will likely be lighter than usual.

Major league baseball playoff games scheduled for Monday in Boston and New York City could be delayed or postponed due to the rain.

The storm is now officially classified as a “post-tropical cyclone,” the center of which was spinning over western Pennsylvania midday Monday.

Nate was downgraded from a hurricane to a tropical storm and finally a tropical depression on Sunday as it raced north after making landfall along the Gulf Coast.

Nate crashed into the Gulf Coast as a Category 1 hurricane Saturday near the mouth of the Mississippi River before making landfall again early Sunday near Biloxi, Miss. The hurricane was the first to make landfall in the state since Katrina devastated much of the Gulf Coast in 2005.

Overall, Nate spared the region the kind of catastrophic damage left by a series of hurricanes that hit the southern US and Caribbean in recent weeks. No storm-related deaths or injuries were immediately reported.

Nate was the fourth hurricane to hit the US and its territories in 2017, following Harvey, Irma and Maria. That’s most US hurricane strikes since 2005, when five hurricanes hit land.

Although Nate knocked out power to more than 100,000 residents in Mississippi, Alabama, Louisiana and Florida, crews restored much of the power grid within 24 hours.

The Mississippi coast “took a hard hit from Nate,” the Mississippi Emergency Management Agency tweeted on Sunday. “The lack of major damage is a testament to the strong and smart rebuilding since Katrina.”

Tropical Storm Ophelia formed Monday but is spinning harmlessly in the central Atlantic Ocean. Although the storm could develop in a hurricane over the next several days, it poses no threat to any land areas, the National Hurricane Center said.