longisland

An estimated 55 million Americans are traveling for Thanksgiving. 

News 12’s Thema Ponton was on the roads to check out the traffic on Long Island.

An estimated 55 million Americans are traveling for Thanksgiving.

Long Island

LI | Weather

RTLIWeather12092023KEllis10pm_2023-12-09-23-05-12

Let's turn our attention now to our weather as we remain on storm watch because we have a serious storm heading our way. We're over here in the weather center with meteorologist Crystal Ellis. So, Crystal, what do people need to know about the exact timing here for this? Uh, the worst of it's going to be tomorrow night into the evening, late evening into tomorrow. The overnight hours. That's when we're going to see the worst wind gusts and the most widespread heaviest rainfall. But that doesn't mean before then we won't be experience some turbulent weather. So looking at our storm watch, we do have a high wind watch and a flood watch. 2 to 4 inches of rain could see even more than that in localized areas. So that will lead to flooding. You definitely want to try to stay home if you can for tomorrow. The winds also between 25 and 4540 MPH sustained gusting to 55 even 60 MPH for tomorrow. So that actually could lead to dangerous wind, damaging winds and uh down trees down power lines. So you definitely want to be weather aware for tomorrow, as we look into tomorrow afternoon, the winds start to pick up a little bit and we'll have some scattered downpours throughout the area as we step into the afternoon. Those downpours again, wherever they set up, that's where we'll have the most rainfall falling and check out the winds gusting up to 3035 MPH throughout the area. And this is around 4 p.m. and that's not even the worst of it as we keep going on. The future cast, you can see the rain is just training on in. It's continuing to come down in heavy bouts in the, in the red, orange and yellow shades and the wind is not going anywhere as well. In fact, it's going to be increasing as we step into the later hours. So here we are 11 pm, wind gusts 47 MPH in Smithtown, 47 Rocky Point and the rain continues to fall. So it's going to be a pretty serious storm for tomorrow. And then in your overnight hours, this is where we're seeing the worst of the wind gusts 52 in Rocky Point. And again, depending on where these fans set up will be the worst of the flooding potential. Looking at your Monday morning, it's still hanging on the winds eventually will calm down. And so does the rain. However, we will have a if you wrap around showers for Monday morning and blustery conditions for the second half of your Monday. So we are on storm watch Sunday afternoon, Sunday night and into your Monday morning before things begin to calm down, it gets colder, the wind sticks around and it's feeling like much more typical December weather highs in the forties for the rest of the work week. But at least it's quiet.

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Weather

trafficponton112322lisl2_2022-11-23-18-00-05

Thunderbolt 12 checks out traffic conditions ahead of Thanksgiving 

rain. Free roads are welcome news to people driving to their thanksgiving destinations. News 12. Tema pontin is out on the road right now in Thunderbolt 12 and Tema, what are you seeing there on the busiest travel day of the year? Well joe unfortunately we are seeing something that no one wants to see. Let me give you a look here from the roof of Thunderbolt 12. Those red tail lights certainly not a welcome sight at this time, which we are. It's a combination of rush hour and also the busiest travel day that you spoke about. According to Triple A. This is the third busiest thanksgiving for travel since they started keeping records. Now we are on the Northern State right now heading east, you see all this traffic, we're sitting in. We have some video for you that we recorded earlier in the day Triple A. Telling us that the heaviest traffic is between three and five. So right now if you're on the roads are waiting for someone, they say that Wednesday is crunch time for travel and that the volume of traffic is far and above normal. What you're looking at from our video earlier, we were eastbound along Jericho turnpike and then on the L. I. E. Eastbound you see some people so busy trying to get our destination, they actually cut Thunderbolt 12 off a couple of times. We were also on south Oyster Bay Road. So people are definitely out here on the roads now if you think that were crowded. Well Triple A says Staten Island Expressway is actually the busiest road in the country. They said it is 158% more traffic than normal. If you can believe that now, Triple A says that this, seeing all of this traffic is actually a good thing. It's generally a good sign if a lot of people are traveling as far as the economy is concerned and we're seeing levels of traffic for total number of travelers, for automobile travelers, for those that are flying, those who are taking a train, a bus or a cruise ship that are approaching 96-99% of pre pandemic levels. And as you see there from the roof of Thunderbolt 12, all of those people, the percentages he's talking about what looks like they're heading east here on long island. The other thing that triple a. Is reminding everyone about is to where their seat belts do not drive impaired and to follow the speed limit.

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