A cluster of severe thunderstorms pounded the US Northeast including New York City on Sunday, unleashing deadly flooding in Pennsylvania, halting operations at several airports, and prompting tornado watches across New England.
In Chicago, air quality has reached unhealthy levels as smoke drops down from Canadian wildfires.
At least five people died and two children were still missing after floods ripped through Bucks County, Pennsylvania, north of Philadelphia on Saturday, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported. The saturated soil from Saturday’s rain could make flooding worse on Sunday across a swath of the East Coast, said Ashton Robinson Cook, a forecaster with the US Weather Prediction Center.
“There is a moderate risk of excessive rain from Jersey through southwestern Maine that includes Philadelphia, New York City and Boston,” Robinson Cook said.
Flood watches and warnings were in effect from Virginia to Maine, with tornado alerts for states including Connecticut, Rhode Island, Massachusetts and New Hampshire, where a NASCAR event was postponed due to severe weather.
All three major New York City-area airports had ground stops — or a temporary pause on operations — on Sunday afternoon because of the thunderstorms, as did an airport on Long Island. Boston’s airport also temporarily stopped operations because of weather. Hundreds of flights have been canceled and delayed at those airports, according to FlightAware, a flight tracking and data platform.
The storms come on the heels of a system last week that killed at least two people and cut roads and rail lines in New York’s Hudson Valley before going on to devastate Vermont.