The nor'easter that has been grinding along the East Coast since Friday is in no hurry to leave. On Saturday morning the low sat about 200 miles east of the Delmarva Peninsula, crawling north. By Sunday it was hovering just off the coast, close enough to brush land and slide back out over the water, and forecasters expect it to weaken slowly and linger into Monday before pulling away on Tuesday.
Bob Oravec, a lead forecaster at the National Weather Service, said the region faced "a lot of high winds, a lot of high tides and heavy rain possibility over the next few days."
One death, about 100,000 customers in the dark
A 56-year-old man was killed in Brooklyn when a tree came down on him. City officials identified him as an employee of the New York City Housing Authority.
In Egg Harbor Township, New Jersey, rescue crews pulled nine adults and a dog out of motel rooms that had flooded. Point Pleasant, on the Jersey Shore, issued a voluntary evacuation, and New Jersey declared a state of emergency.
Roughly 100,000 customers across the region lost electricity, with wind-driven rain bringing down trees and power lines.
Gusts to 74 mph, waves above 16 feet
The strongest gust measured so far was 74 mph, at Surf City, New Jersey, late Friday. Several stations along the Jersey Shore recorded gusts above 60 mph, and Cape Cod, Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket saw 60 to 65 mph. On Sunday, gusts were still topping 50 mph across much of the Northeast, including 56 mph at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York.
Buoys off the Jersey Shore and southern New England registered waves above 16 feet.
Water that never fully drains
Rainfall ran 2 to 4 inches across much of the Northeast, reaching 6 inches in a band between New Jersey and Boston. The Philadelphia area and eastern New Jersey took 1 to 3 inches; parts of Long Island and southern New England took 3 to 5.
Coastal flood warnings covered the shoreline from eastern Virginia to southern Maine. The most serious of them — major coastal flood warnings — ran from the Outer Banks of North Carolina through the Jersey Shore, where water was expected to reach 2 to 4 feet above normal at high tide. In Boston, a flood watch runs through 2 a.m. Tuesday.
Damage from a storm like this one has less to do with any single gust than with repetition. Because the low is barely moving, each high tide arrives before the water from the previous one has drained, and the same stretch of beach, dune and back bay takes the same beating twice a day for three days running.
Reporting from CBS News, ABC News and The Weather Channel.
