Newly appointed BrendanLoy.com Washington Bureau Chief Dane Lindberg provides us with the following report:

Short update from the Washington DC area. . . We have no power. . . I will have to keep this short (I’m not sure how many days the batteries on my laptop will need to last). It was quite blustery last night, and there is significant damage to power lines and trees. And unlike Brendan I could not go into work today. . . something about Old Town Alexandria being flooded (10 feet above the river; I’ll [send] Brendan a picture some time soon) and most of the GW parkway being shut down. Judging by the damage to power polls and the like I have a feeling that we will be without power in this area fro quite some time. That’s all for now. . . Time to shut down the computer for tomorrow’s ten minutes :)

Thanks for the update, Dane!

The National Hurricane Center has spoken its last word on Isabel, declaring it extratropical at 11:00 AM — a little sooner than I expected. Its final official position was about 50 miles northeast of Cleveland Ohio, directly over Lake Erie (whose 70-degree water temperatures are not nearly enough to support a hurricane, in case you were wondering).

So it’s official: for the first time in 22 days and 18 hours, the Atlantic basin is free of organized tropical systems. Time for the NHC forecasters to take a much-deserved rest.

And, dare I say it, it’s time for me to do the same. I’ve been “flooding the zone” with blog-coverage of something for two-plus weeks now: first Fabian, then the 9/11 anniversary, and then Isabel. It’s been fun, but I expect blogging will be light this weekend; I really need to take a break from staring at a computer screen and/or a cell-phone screen all the time.

I’m blogging now because it’s my lunch break from work — in other words, because I can — but this weekend I really need to turn to other pursuits, like taking deep breaths, stopping to smell the roses, and cleaning up my pigsty of an apartment.

On the other hand, if I end up attending the Dalai Lama event in Central Park and/or the medieval festival in Washington Heights this Sunday, I suppose I won’t be able to resist a bit of Moblogging from the cell phone…

Well, adios: it being my lunch break, I should probably now begin to actually eat lunch. :)

Clearing skies over Midtown.

Oh yeah, it looks really threatening here in Lower Manhattan. We’ve got hurricane-force blue skies! :)

When Tropical Storm Isabel is declared extratropical and the National Hurricane Center issues its final advisory, which will probably happen later today or early tomorrow, the Atlantic basin will be free of organized tropical systems for the first time since Tropical Depression Ten — which would become Hurricane Fabian — formed at 5:00 PM on August 27.

Well, that’s assuming nothing else forms in the mean time, of course. There is “a broad area of low pressure associated with a tropical wave is located about 600 miles east of the Lesser Antilles,” according to the National Hurricane Center. But “upper-level winds are currently not favorable for development.” And a good thing, too: after more than three straight weeks of issuing advisories on active storms, the NHC deserves a break!

They also deserve to throw themselves a party for forecasting Isabel’s movements so succcessfully. I don’t know if the accuracy with this particular storm was mostly a fluke, or if the technology really has improved that much, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen a better-forecasted hurricane landfall in my 14 years of watching these things.

Isabel, now rapidly weakening — but still wet and blustery — is expected to move directly over Buffalo today. I demand on-the-scene reports from the SHA girl blog! :)

UPDATE: As for New York, the National Hurricane Center says:

There is a threat of isolated tornadoes over portions of Maryland… Delaware…central and eastern Pennsylvania…New Jersey…southern New York…and western Connecticut today.

There isn’t even much rain here, let alone tornadoes, but I suppose we should still be on alert. The good news is, hurricane-produced tornadoes are generally rather small and weak, as tornadoes go. Not that a “small, weak” tornado is exactly a walk in the park, but still.

You can view the latest conditions here (and check if any tornadoes are hitting Midtown) on the Jobs & the City webcam.

The Tropical Storm Warning for the New York area remains in place for now, even though the storm’s (now rather poorly defined) center is well to the west of us. As for the track:

Isabel is moving toward the north-northwest near 21 mph. A gradual turn toward the north at a faster forward speed is expected during the next 24 hours. This motion should bring the center of Isabel across portions of West Virginia…western Maryland…and western Pennsylvania today.