Vera Kalnichenko looks out at the flood waters from her parents' friend's home in Hallandale Beach, Florida, after flood water inundated it on Thursday.
CNN —
Heavy rainfall that’s caused unrelenting flooding in South Florida since Tuesday will continue for a fourth consecutive day after turning roads into canals and forcing some residents to stand on the roofs of their cars or trudge through waist-deep waters.
Even as the robust tropical moisture fueling the soaking storms slowly starts to shift out of the area, Friday marks yet another drenching day for South Florida and multiple cities could see more than 2 feet of rain Tuesday through Friday.
“Heavy to excessive rainfall will continue to bring flooding, with locally considerable flash and urban flooding possible, through Friday over the southern Florida Peninsula,” the National Weather Service said.
Since heavy rains started swamping the region Tuesday, the flooding has become waist-deep in some places. Hazardous conditions on streets and roadways have stranded drivers and made roads impassable. And they’ve forced some schools in hard-hit counties to shutter and hundreds of flights to be canceled or delayed.
Gulf moisture continues to stream over South Florida, where the Weather Prediction Center has issued a level 2 of 4 flood threat through Friday – lower than the rare high risk of excessive rainfall seen Thursday.
Flood watches remain in effect for over 7 million people across South Florida, including in Miami and Fort Lauderdale, through Friday evening. An additional 2 to 4 inches or more of rainfall is expected through Friday night but thunderstorm activity is expected to subside by the weekend.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis declared a state of emergency for Broward, Collier, Lee, Miami-Dade and Sarasota counties, and officials have urged locals to stay at home instead of walking or driving through the floodwater, which has covered streets and seeped into homes. Many cities have been distributing sandbags to residents to help combat the rising floodwaters.
The southern Florida Peninsula was hit by multiple rounds of torrential downpours fueled by a firehose of tropical moisture from parts of the Caribbean Thursday. Floodwaters haven’t had time to fully recede and some communities in and north of the Miami metro remained underwater Thursday morning, aerial imagery showed.
Continued downpours could mean more urban flooding through Friday across South Florida, according to the National Weather Service. Elsewhere in the state, flash and urban flooding remains possible through Saturday.
A vehicle is driven through a flooded street in Hallandale Beach, Florida, on Thursday.
Flooding brought back familiar dangers for Florida residents
With flooding from the rainfall deluging South Florida since Tuesday morning, footage on social media has shown water levels in the area reaching to vehicles’ windows and filling up parking decks and neighborhood streets.
Notably, many South Florida residents had just finished repairing their homes aftercatastrophic flooding in April 2023, only to find water lapping at their doorsteps this week.
In Miami, video showed stranded cars that were nearly entirely submerged under water. One area family’s yard looked like a lake as belongings floated outside and were pulled from the standing water, according to CNN affiliate WSVN.
“I’m scared,” 11-year-old Somaya Ferdinand told WSVN as she waded through thigh-high water outside her home in Northeast Miami-Dade. “It looked like a swimming pool.”
And in Hallandale Beach, just north of Miami, footage showed one man kayaking among cars as high waters flooded parts of the city. Some mobile home parks were underwater, said Broward County Sheriff’s Office Fire Rescue Battalion Chief Michael Kane.
Severe flooding there on Wednesday covered cars up to their windshields, forcing some drivers to abandon their stalled-out vehicles and wade to safety. Others had to be rescued.
“We had to use our boats to rescue people standing on top of the roofs of cars,” Kane told CNN. Kane’s office received 175 calls for help in Hallandale Beach alone.
Anna Rysedorph, a resident of the Broward County neighborhood of Edgewood, prepared for the worst as water circled her ankles in her home.
“I put the dogs in, I’m all packed up. I pretty much got everything in bins and we’re ready to go,” Edgewood resident Anna Rysedorph toldCNN affiliate WSVNWednesday. “My husband’s like ‘Don’t panic, don’t panic,’ but you know, I’m not gonna be caught unprepared.”
An abandoned car sits submerged in flood waters near the Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, on Thursday after heavy rainfall hit the area.
Severe storms to impact High Plains, Northeast and Mid-Atlantic Friday
As Florida deals with the deluge, another system is bringing severe thunderstorm threat with large hail and high winds to the Northern and Central High Plains and portions of the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic on Friday.
Thunderstorms are expected across the High Plains beginning Friday afternoon and continuing into the evening, according to the National Weather Service.
Two regions are under aslight level 2 of 5 risks of severe thunderstorms in the central High Plains and from the Mid-Atlantic to southern New England. The threat in the Central US covers parts ofColorado,Nebraska andKansas, while the Northeast threat spreads from northern Virginiato Maine and includes Boston.
New York City, Washington, DC, Philadelphia, Baltimore and Boston are under a lower level 1 of 5 severe storm threat.
Severe storms with large hail and severe wind gusts will be possible along the Front Range into the Central Plains Friday afternoon into the evening.
“Scattered severe storms with large hail and wind gusts of 60-80 mph will be possible from mid-afternoon through the evening on Friday along the Front Range to the central Great Plains,” the Storm Prediction Center said. “Scattered strong storms with sporadic damaging winds and isolated hail will be possible across the Northeast States during the afternoon to early evening.”
Storms are expected to develop over western Pennsylvania Friday afternoon and spread into the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic Coast that evening.
CNN’s Elizabeth Wolfe,Mary Gilbert, Taylor Galgano and Christina Maxouris contributed to this report.
