Nearly 100K without power as Florida slammed with heavy rain

More than 94,000 electric customers in Florida were without power mid-morning on Thursday, as the eastern coast of the state was inundated with heavy rain overnight.

According to PowerOutage.us, which tracks outages across the country, that number is falling, down from more than 100,000 earlier Thursday morning.

A slight risk of excessive rainfall was in effect Thursday morning, down from the moderate risk Wednesday, according to the National Weather Service (NWS) outlook.

Broward County Public Schools canceled classes Thursday to “ensure the safety of students and staff,” it announced on its website. Miami-Dade Public Schools and Palm Beach County Schools both remained open Thursday.

There is a high wind warning in effect until 1 p.m. local time Thursday for the southeastern cities of Sebastian, Vero Beach, Fort Pierce, Port St. Lucie, Hobe Sound, Jensen Beach and Stuart. Winds will be 25 mph to 40 mph with gusts as high as 60 mph.

A wind advisory then takes its place for those cities, which expects northeast winds at 20 mph to 30 mph, with gusts up to 45 mph.

From the time the heavy rains began Wednesday until the end of the night, Miami received 6.73 inches of rain, according to preliminary estimates. Miami received between 5 inches and 9 inches of rain for the 24 hours beginning Wednesday morning, according to an Associated Press report that cited Luke Culver, an NWS meteorologist .

Culver said Fort Lauderdale recorded between 4 inches and 7 inches for the same period. Fort Lauderdale experienced another heavy rainfall day, back in mid-April, when parts of the city got up to 25 inches of rain.

The NWS warns that, although the heaviest rainfall is moving off coast, “the threat of locally heavy rain and flash flooding concerns will continue until that precip axis pulls away.” Locally heavy rain is still possible, especially in the late afternoon and evening, according to the NWS.

Thursday’s rainfall totals on the eastern coast will be about 2 inches to 4 inches, but the possibility of 8 inches “is not out of the question.”