Heavy rain and strong winds could cause flooding, outages

Heavy rains and high winds were forecast for late Thursday and much of Friday in the MidHudson Valley and Catskills, and forecasters said flooding and power outages were possible.

The National Weather Service in Albany issued a flood watch and a wind advisory for much of the region, as well as flood warnings for area creeks that tend to overflow. The weather service said heavy rain falling on a deep snowpack would lead to significant melting, which could result in flooding.

“The snowmelt combined with one to three inches of rain, with locally higher amounts of up to six inches in the eastern Catskills, could cause urban f lash flooding ,” the watch states. “Flows in rivers may increase quickly with some rising above flood stage on Friday .”

The wind advisory stated southeast winds of 15 to 25 mph were expected, with gusts up to 50 mph affecting western Ulster and Greene counties into Friday afternoon. Gusty winds could blow around unsecured objects and damage tree limbs, leading to outages, the advisory states.

Central Hudson Gas & Electric Corp. urged its customers to prepare for the heavy rains and potentially damaging winds that could cause service interruptions.

“We know reliable electrical service is vital to our customers, especially during the Christmas holiday and at a time when we’re also navigating t he COVID-19 pandemic,” Ryan Hawthorne, assistant vice president of electric engineering and operations at Central Hudson, said in a prepared statement. “Our employees are prepared to work through the holiday, we have secured additional line crews, and we are maintaining regular contact with local emergency responders. If outages occur, we will be ready to address them as efficiently and safely as possible.”