A powerful storm system out West is moving its way into our area, bringing a threat of severe and potentially dangerous storms. Massive thunderstorms swept through the Midwest on Wednesday. Meteorologists warn that the line of storms could launch a weather event called a derecho, which is a straight-line wind storm spanning at least 240 miles.

The entire state of Pennsylvania is under a flood watch overnight and through the day Thursday. Weather service officials say the greatest risk of flooding is in the northern portion of the state while the worst thunderstorms are expected in southern areas. Officials say a standby worker was added at the emergency operations center in Harrisburg and officials had ensured two National Guard helicopters were ready if needed for water rescues.

Storms are also now forming in Delaware and parts of extreme South Jersey.

GALLERY: What to Expect From Thursday's Storms

The first line of storms is expected to arrive in Central Pennsylvania around 4 a.m. Periods of rain will begin to fall around 8 a.m. though there will be periods of dryness as well as a risk for isolated thunderstorms. NBC10 Meteorologist Bill Henley says to expect heavy rain during the morning commute, with conditions worsening by the afternoon.

By 12 p.m., strong thunderstorms will hit the area and continue throughout the rest of the day with its peak hitting at 5 p.m. The storms could be potentially severe with damaging winds.

Timeline:

8 a.m. - Showers/Possible Thunderstorm

12 p.m. - Strong Thunderstorms

5 p.m. - Strong Thunderstorms (Peak)

This graphic shows the elevated risk of severe weather in Southeastern Pennsylvania, South Jersey and Delaware.

The area in red is most likely to experience strong thunderstorms in the afternoon, with a possibility of isolated tornadoes, says Henley. There is also a threat of powerful winds and hail.

There's also a Flood Watch in effect for our entire area, with a Flood warning in Burlington County.

Between 1-3 inches of rain is expected, Henley says. The wet weather is expected to linger through the evening before it begins to taper off.

On Monday, a tornado tore through a neighborhood in Newark, Del. The National Weather Service says the funnel cloud was 150 yards wide and left four-tenths of a mile path of destruction.

The storms earlier this week caused flooding in several parts of the region, including I-76 eastbound near Route 202, Lakewood, New Jersey and East Norriton, Montgomery County.

Minor flooding was also reported along the east branch of the Brandywine Creek below Downingtown in Chester County.

"It's going to be a dramatic change from sunshine today to the threat of severe weather tomorrow," says Henley, who reminds people to bring in lawn furniture or make any other preparations today before the stormy weather begins.

What's up with the wild weather? We're posting a series of articles and videos that attempt to answer that question.

• Part 2: How Does Earth's Warm-Up Affect Us? 
• Part 3: The Battle Over Climate Change
• Part 4: What You Can Do to Stop Earth's Warm-Up
• Hurricane's Blog: 16th Annual Winter Forecast

“I’m waiting for locusts and pestilence next,” joked Governor Chris Christie during one of his many recent news conferences addressing post-Sandy recovery efforts.

There is of course some truth in jest. In the past few weeks the region has been slammed with nasty weather of seemingly Biblical proportions. An unusual weather pattern slammed Hurricane Sandy directly into the Northeast. Days later, more wind blew through the area, this time combined with snow and sleet.

Our region isn’t the only one suffering right now. Two rare late season tornadoes sliced through Minneapolis, major rain falls caused flooding in Italy and Northeast China was blasted by the heaviest snow it’s seen in 30 years. And scientists say the wild weather is only beginning.

“More events that are extreme in nature and that have the capacity to hurt people and hurt property, we’re going to see more and more of those,” said Dr. Heidi Cullen, a research scientist.

Dr. Cullen works with the group Climate Center. The group describes what we’re in for weather-wise as “Global Weirdness.” Dr. Cullen believes rising temperatures which are changing our climate have increased the odds of extreme storms like Sandy.

“Climate change didn’t cause Hurricane Sandy,” said Dr. Cullen. “Climate change very possibly made Sandy worse.”

NBC10 also spoke to Dr. Jennifer Francis via Skype. She’s a leading expert on the connection between the melting arctic ice and changes in weather patterns like the one that caused Sandy to make an unprecedented sharp left turn into our coast line.

“Literally every storm that forms now is being affected by climate change,” said Dr. Francis. “Nobody can say that wouldn’t have happened without climate change. But the research I’ve been working on suggests that type of pattern in the jet stream is going to be more likely in the future.”

NBC10 also spoke with Dr. David Legates, a climatology professor at the University of Delaware.

“I’m not panicked,” said Dr. Legates. “Weird things happen but you just can’t say because one weird thing happened that this is climate change that is human induced.”

Dr. Legates disputes research that finds climate change is largely a man-made problem. However, the great majority of published research scientists and science academies around the world believe fossil fuels are linked to rising global temperatures.

The bottom line is that it’s hard to blame climate change for any one bad storm. But more and more scientists now believe that climate change increases our risk of being unlucky.

Stay tuned for part 2 of our “What’s Up With the Weather” series when we find out what scientists say is causing our weather changes and what it could mean for both Jersey and Delaware beaches.
 

What's up with the wild weather? We're posting a series of articles and videos that attempt to answer that question.

• Part 1: Is Climate Change Causing Our Wild Weather? 
• Part 3: The Battle Over Climate Change
• Part 4: What You Can Do to Stop Earth's Warm-Up
• Hurricane's Blog; 16th Annual Winter Forecast

The Earth is heating up, according to scientific data. Many climate researchers believe the warm-up is changing our weather for the worse. But who’s to blame?

“Really what we’re seeing is the planet is running a fever,” said Dr. Heidi Cullen, a climatologist.
Dr. Cullen says the Earth is becoming trapped under a blanket of heat.

“We have seen massive changes in our climate over time,” said Dr. Cullen. “But what we are seeing now is that we are part of the mix.”

Dr. Cullen says burning fossil fuels like coal, oil and natural gas traps energy, creating a warmer, wetter atmosphere. Rutgers University researcher, Dr. Jennifer Francis says there is scientific proof the air is flush with manmade carbon dioxide.

“It’s warming at the surface but it’s cooling very high up in the atmosphere,” said Dr. Francis. “So we know that’s a greenhouse gas fingerprint.”

Dr. Francis also says the sun isn’t the culprit because it’s cooling down. Last week, a new study linked global warming to stronger hurricanes. Scientists at Purdue University say that hurricanes today intensify more quickly, to a higher category, than in the past.

Arctic ice is melting faster than ever and sea levels are rising. This picture represents how much of Delaware and New Jersey could be underwater in seven years.

Credit: Climate Central
 
This picture represents how much could be underwater in 90 years.

Credit: Climate Central

“This is just a ticking time bomb waiting to happen,” said Dr. Francis.

Not everyone agrees however.

“I don’t think it will be nearly as dramatic as we’re making it out to be,” said Dr. David Legates of the University of Delaware.

Dr. Legates believes the Earth is heating up but disagrees with the majority of published research scientists as to why.

“I don’t think fossil fuels themselves are evil,” said Dr. Legates.

There is also evidence that even as emissions increase, the Earth is picking up some of the slack. In August, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) said that oceans, forests and other eco systems remove half of human created carbon dioxide, gobbling up twice as much as 50 years ago. But researchers also warn to not expect that trend to continue forever.

NBC10 spoke with Alexandra Beyers, who believes climate change is already upon us.

“I definitely believe that we’ll see more of the same just based on the fact that we haven’t changed anything in our society at all,” said Beyers.

Our “What’s Up With the Weather?” series continues tomorrow when we’ll tell you about why millions of dollars are being spent pitting science against science.
 

What's up with the wild weather? We're posting a series of articles and videos that attempt to answer that question.

• Part 1: Is Climate Change Causing Our Wild Weather?
• Part 2: How Does Earth's Warm-Up Affect Us? 
• Part 4: What You Can Do to Stop Earth's Warm-Up
• Hurricane's Blog: 16th Annual Winter Forecast

The debate over our Earth’s rising temperature and the cause of it has led to confusion for many people who say they don’t know what to believe.

“I just ignore them all,” said one person.

“I’m not sure,” said another.

Many climate researchers say there’s no question that the earth is heating up and that human-produced carbon dioxide is mainly to blame.

“Human caused climate change is real,” said Dr. Michael Mann of Penn State University.

A smaller group of scientists disagree however.

“More carbon dioxide in the atmosphere actually makes life better,” said Dr. David Legates of the University of Delaware.

When Dr. Heidi Cullen, a climatologist, learned that NBC10 planned to include so-called climate change deniers in our story, she wanted to pull out of our series. She believes giving “equal time” to the other side is “false balance.”

“The fact that we burn fossil fuel is adding to the extremeness of our climate,” said Dr. Cullen.

98% of the most published climate researchers say human activity is the main reason for the earth’s warm-up. But the debate between these researchers and those who disagree has led to ugly insults, lawsuits and even death threats.

“The FBI had to come in and investigate an envelope that I received that contained white powder,” said Dr. Mann.

Dr. Mann says he had an anthrax scare after his groundbreaking research, known as the “Hockey Stick Theory” was published. It’s a graph shaped like a hockey stick showing the sharp rise in recent global temperatures. Dr. Mann says he’s feared for his life and is suing both the National Review and the Competitive Enterprise for comparing him to convicted child molester Jerry Sandusky. Dr. Mann believes climate change deniers have motives outside of pure science.

“There has been a concerted effort by certain groups, most of them associated in one way or another with the fossil fuel industry, who understandably don’t want to see us shift away from our reliance on fossil fuels,” said Dr. Mann.

“I can only suggest that perhaps they are being paid to say what they say,” said Dr. Jennifer Francis.
Climate professor Dr. David Legates strongly opposes the idea that manmade fossil fuels are disrupting our climate. He’s associated with several organizations that receive money from Exxon-Mobil and has been called “the mouthpiece of big oil.”

“I’ve given talks at groups that potentially have gotten money from Mobil,” said Dr. Legates.
But Legates says he’s never taken a penny for himself or his research from ExxonMobil. He accuses other researchers of being driven by dollars.

“Climate change has become a very big bandwagon for getting funds,” said Dr. Legates. “One thing universities like and one thing research organizations like is money.”

“To say we need 100% certainty before we move forward is actually a very poor decision,” said Dr. Cullen.

Despite the debate, the most recent science supports global warming. A study released on Monday warns that the Earth’s temperature will rise 7 degrees in the next 90 years or so. Another recent study finds the computer models predicting the most warming are the most accurate.

In our next “What’s Up With the Weather” post, we’ll discuss what, if anything, can be done to slow the warm-up.
 

Four properties were evacuated after a wall collapsed in the Bella Vista section of the city Monday night.

Officials say rain washed away the temporary shoring behind several buildings at a construction site on the 600 block of South 8th Street. This then led to a mudslide which caused the retainer wall of a building to collapse shortly after 7:30 p.m.

The wall damaged four properties nearby and forced at least eight people to evacuate. No one was injured. The Red Cross is currently assisting the displaced residents.

The heavy rains also led to minor flooding as rivers and creeks throughout the Philadelphia area rose. Heavy winds also uprooted trees and caused other damage in some areas.

The collapse comes less than a week after a deadly building collapse on 22nd and Market that killed six people and injured 13 others.

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• Building Collapse Victim: I Just Ran for Cover
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• Transplant Group Rejects Lung Rule Changes 

A powerful storm ripped through the region, damaging homes and causing flooding in several areas.

A Tornado Warning was issued for Northern New Castle County in Delaware and was in effect until 5:15 p.m. According to the National Weather Service, a severe thunderstorm capable of producing a tornado moved Northeast through the area at 30 mph.

An NBC10 viewer also sent in a picture of what appears to be a funnel cloud that was spotted in Delaware during the storm.

According to the National Weather Service, large trees fell on 10 to 20 homes, causing heavy damage between Glasgow and Newark along Routes 72 and 4. There are no reported injuries however.

"I laid down on the floor and then I looked and I saw the tree coming through the house," said Peggy Boyle, a Newark resident. "I just screamed."

Photo Credit: Amy Drennan

Ambler Sudler says if she and her four children were inside their Newark, Delaware home, they would have been sitting right where a tree crashed into their living room.

"Thank God everyone is okay," she said. "I'm just in shock right now." 

The Red Cross will shelter those who have nowhere to go.

A tornado watch was also issued for Philadelphia down to the Jersey Shore (including Camden, Gloucester, Salem, Cumberland, Atlantic and Cape May counties) and for all of Delaware. The watch expired at 10 p.m. for all of the areas except for Delaware. In Delaware, the Tornado Watch expired at midnight. Delmarva reports that 951 customers are currently without power. The National Weather Service also issued a flood watch for all of southeastern Pennsylvania and the Lehigh Valley as well as parts of the Poconos.

The storm caused flooding in several parts of the region, including I-76 eastbound near Route 202, Lakewood, New Jersey and East Norriton, Montgomery County. Minor flooding was also reported along the east branch of the Brandywine Creek below Downingtown in Chester County.

A large tree also fell on top of two cars on the 400 block of Hermit Street in Manayunk. The heavy rain also led to a mudslide which caused a wall to collapse in the Bella Vista section of the city.

YouTube.com/caitlinhalbert

The watch means that conditions are favorable for some tornados to develop in some areas.

"This is the time of year that if there is going to be something (meaning tornados), it will be late May and early June," said Schwartz. "However the threat is moreso damaging winds than a tornado touching down."

Hurricane reports: There will be more storms developing even if we start to dry out. Showers will taper to a drizzle later tonight. The next two days will be much drier until a heavy rain system comes in on Thursday. 

Right now, showers and storms are moving through our area and they are not going to let up anytime soon.

"This is going to be very scattered," according to NBC10 meteorologist Sheena Parveen, who says the most severe storm threat is West and Northwest of Philadelphia.

The Lehigh Valley and Poconos are already seeing thunderstorms, but Parveen says the storms are just as strong in South Jersey. "Anyone is fair game for a thunderstorm."

The heavy rain and gusty winds will last throughout the evening.

Localized flooding could be possible, right now there is a flood advisory for Northampton, Carbon and Monroe counties until 5:30 p.m.

Tonight's threat will diminish after the sun goes down, but that doesn't mean the rain is over.

The wet weather will continue until the start of the Memorial Day weekend. That means people who are heading out of town tomorrow will have to deal with wet travel conditions.

Temperatures will also drop from the 80s today, to the 50s by tomorrow.

Temperatures will stay in the 60s until Monday, which is expected to be the nicest day of the holiday weekend.

 

During Superstorm Sandy, George Kasimos watched the lagoon outside his Toms River home drop four feet. Then he watched it come flooding back.

“All of a sudden the water rose two feet, and we all knew there was a problem,” Kasimos said while standing amid a construction zone in his living room. “Actually, some of the neighbors knew and left.”

Click here to use FEMA's Interactive Flood Map

Eighteen inches of water flooded the first floor of his house, but he says he was the first homeowner on the block with a dumpster after the storm, determined to rebuild. Then his neighbor came over and showed him some new flood maps and a sheet with flood insurance rate information.

“I thought I was on that show Punk'd, to be honest,” he said, “I just didn’t believe it.”

Kasimos estimates that if he doesn’t raise his home four feet, his flood insurance will go from $1,000 per year to $15,000 per year.

As summer approaches, the Jersey Shore is in a rush to rebuild from Sandy, to get back to normal and be open for summer tourists. But many homeowners are feeling stuck and frustrated, not knowing if or how they should rebuild. Much of that confusion comes from flood maps that were actually meant to help answer some of the very questions they’ve wound up complicating.

“We’d have been in our house in January,” said Kasimos. “But unfortunately we had to stop [rebuilding] for a couple months so we can get some answers as to are we going rebuild, are we going to raise, or are we going to walk away from our homes because we cannot afford the flood insurance?”

Kasimos says his questions have arisen from new Advisory Base Flood Elevation maps that the Federal Emergency Management Agency released after Sandy. Once finalized, they’ll be used to set flood insurance rates.

On these new maps, Kasimos is now in what’s called a Velocity Zone, a V-zone, meaning FEMA modeling shows that in a 100-year storm, waves three feet or higher would hit his home. He’s supposed to elevate his house at least four feet (elevation requirements vary depending on the location) and put it on pilings. That means lifting the house off its foundation, moving it out of the way, and sinking poles into the ground on top of which his house would sit.

However, Kasimos believes his home should be in an A-zone — at risk for flooding but not the extra damage of waves. In an A-zone, he would not be mandated to use pilings, which would considerably limit the expense of elevating.

“In an A-zone, [elevating] cost about $50,000 for an average home and our home,” he said. “For a V-zone, it’s about $150,000. That is a $100,000 price difference in raising our home.”

Unhappy with his designation, Kasimos started a group on Facebook called Stop FEMA Now to call attention to the problems he sees with the maps. It has over 3,200 members.

“We do anticipate the V-Zone in certain areas becoming smaller,” said Bill McDonnell, who oversees Sandy response and mitigation projects in New Jersey for FEMA.

When Sandy hit the East Coast in October of last year, FEMA was already two years into a project to update these flood maps, which in some areas dated back to the 1980s.

It generally takes between three and five years to update flood maps because of the extensive land surveys and computer modeling required. The maps include data from roughly 100 past storms, as well as hypothetical storms that have not yet occurred.

McDonnell said FEMA decided to release an early version of the maps after the storm, so that people could have the most recent data available to decide how to rebuild.

“It is an advisory product,” he said. “It’s just out there for informational purposes and then the state of New Jersey adopted it as a land use policy, so that if people were going to rebuild, they have to rebuild to that standard.”

This is the source of many homeowners’ confusion: the advisory maps became the standard for rebuilding homes that had substantial damage. Homeowners anxious to rebuild have to decide if they think their zoning might change when the next version of the maps, which will include more complete data, is released this summer.

These updated maps will take into account modeling of how waves move over land as they interact with obstacles, such as homes and vegetation.

It’s not that the current maps are inaccurate as much as they are incomplete, explained Dr. Stewart Farrell, director of the Coastal Research Center at Richard Stockton College just outside Atlantic City.

Citing the example of Avalon, Dr. Farrell pointed to the FEMA advisory map on his computer screen, in which the V-Zone reaches inland from the bay past roughly seven rows of houses.

“There’s no way a bay wave can be carried that far inland,” he said.

Dr. Farrell also believes the next round of maps should take into consideration the difference in power of a wave on the bay versus the ocean. These waves were treated the same in the advisory maps, despite that “a bay wave has the impact force of a small car compared to a Mack truck on the ocean side.”

Brick Township Mayor Stephen Acropolis said many of his constituents are in flux.

“In Brick, there were about 400 homes that were Velocity-Zone homes prior to the storm,” he said.

“Most of those homes are on the barrier island. Now there are over 4,000. That is way too many homes in the Velocity Zone.”

Mayor Acropolis thinks only about 1,000 home should be in the V-Zone. So for now, he’s counseling people unsure if their status will change to hold off on elevating.

“If you’re in a marginal V-zone, do you want to make the decision to knock down your house now because you know you’ve got to put it on pilings when you may go back to an A-Zone and be able to just raise it and put it on a foundation?”

But even waiting can have a cost. People need to rebuild somehow, to begin getting their lives back together.

For George Kasimos in Toms River, that means fixing parts of his property — his deck, stairs, and siding — that says he’ll have to tear up when he eventually elevates.

FEMA’s McDonnell understands that people want definitive answers. He expects to start releasing a new version of the maps county-by-county, perhaps as early as June. Homeowners with substantial damage have four years to become compliant with the new standards and elevations; insurance rates won’t be calculated off the new maps until they’ve been finalized after a period of public review and commenting.

This report was made possible through a partnership in news coverage between NBC10.com and NewsWorks.org

Hurricane Sandy delivered a historic level of destruction to the Eastern Seaboard, doing so much damage that it has achieved the ignominious distinction of having its name retired.

"If a storm is so deadly or so costly that the future use of the name would be insensitive, or even confusing, then that's the criteria," said Dennis Feltgen, spokesman for the National Hurricane Center. "Certainly, the impact that Sandy had, not only in the United States, but also Jamaica and Cuba, where it made landfall as major hurricane, it's almost a no-brainer that Sandy would be retired."

Preliminary estimates say that Sandy, which made shore Oct. 29 in New Jersey, cost Americans more than $50 billion and 147 lives. At the most recent meeting of the World Meteorological Association's hurricane committee, it was agreed that "Sandy" would be the 77th name to be retired from use since 1954.

Because names are assigned to storms alphabetically and reused every six years, when one name is retired, it must be replaced by another name with the same first letter. Taking the place of "Sandy" will be the name "Sara."

Since 1995, there have been 39 storm names retired, a rate more than double what we saw in the '70s and '80s. Feltgen says the jump is due to a surge in hurricane activity, but that's not the only reason there have been so many names retired of late.

"It's not that the storms are any more intense, they're not. We're throwing more people and real estate in harms way," said Feltgen. Quite simply, the build up of property and communities along the shore has  put more lives and dollars the path of storms.

According to Feltgen, cycles of increased hurricane activity can last as long as 40 years, so he says it's reasonable to assume that the one we're in now is far from over. And even we do return to a lull in storm activity, there's still no shortage of danger.

"Just because you're in an inactivity period doesn't mean you won't get clobbered. A great example is Andrew in 1992, that was still in a period of small hurricane numbers, but that was the last Cat 5 to hit the U.S."