A truck passes the Sam’s Corner restaurant in Garden City, S.C., on Monday during heavy rains from Hurricane Isaias. Now a tropical storm, Isaias is moving north-northwest along the U.S. Eastern Seaboard.

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A truck passes the Sam’s Corner restaurant in Garden City, S.C., on Monday during heavy rains from Hurricane Isaias. Now a tropical storm, Isaias is moving north-northwest along the U.S. Eastern Seaboard.

Sean Rayford/Getty Images

Isaias is flooding low-lying areas of South Carolina, North Carolina and Virginia as it plows its way up the Mid-Atlantic coast. Isaias is now a tropical storm, after hitting the shore as a hurricane late Monday night. It’s now bringing threats of flash floods and tornadoes as it heads to the Northeast.

Isaias remains fearsome: just before 9 a.m. ET, a weather station at York River East in Virginia reported wind gusts up to 94 mph, the National Hurricane Center says.

“Very heavy rainfall and life-threatening flash and urban flooding are expected along the storm’s track up the Eastern Seaboard,” the National Weather Service says. “A few tornadoes will be possible from the Virginia Tidewater into New England.”

Isaias made landfall in North Carolina around 11:10 p.m. ET, blasting ashore with sustained winds of 85 mph near Ocean Isle Beach, N.C., just above the border with South Carolina, the National Hurricane Center said.

Isaias will speed up the East Coast on Tuesday, bringing threats of flash floods and dangerous storm surges, the National Weather Service says.

NOAA/Esri/HERE/Garmin/Earthstar Geographics

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NOAA/Esri/HERE/Garmin/Earthstar Geographics

Isaias will speed up the East Coast on Tuesday, bringing threats of flash floods and dangerous storm surges, the National Weather Service says.

NOAA/Esri/HERE/Garmin/Earthstar Geographics

Since its center moved over land, the storm has only weakened slowly – roughly nine hours after landfall, it was still clocking sustained winds of 70 mph, according to the NHC’s 8 a.m. update. Those strong winds are expected to down trees and cause power outages.

“A faster rate of weakening is expected to begin tonight, and the system is forecast to become post-tropical tonight or early Wednesday,” the NHC says.

Isaias is rushing toward the north-northeast, moving at 33 mph. It has sped up consistently after coming ashore with forward movement of around 22 mph. Its outer bands of rain project for hundreds of miles. As of 8 a.m., it was extending tropical-storm-force winds outward up to 140 miles.

The center of the storm was over land for hours and is now about 50 miles south of Annapolis, Md. — but Isaias’ surge of ocean water still poses a dire threat for a broad swath of the coast.

After making landfall as a hurricane, Isaias was still packing sustained winds of 70 mph Tuesday morning. The storm — seen here via satellite just before 9 a.m. ET — is projecting tropical-storm-force winds outward up to 140 miles.

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NOAA/NESDIS/STAR GOES-East

After making landfall as a hurricane, Isaias was still packing sustained winds of 70 mph Tuesday morning. The storm — seen here via satellite just before 9 a.m. ET — is projecting tropical-storm-force winds outward up to 140 miles.

NOAA/NESDIS/STAR GOES-East

Over the past 12 hours, Isaias has put roughly 1,000 miles of the U.S. East Coast under a storm surge warning, from Folly Beach, S.C., near Charleston, to Martha’s Vineyard, Mass. The current outlook warns of a peak surge of 3-5 feet for much of North Carolina’s coastline, and of 1-3 feet for areas to the north, including the Chesapeake Bay and Delaware Bay.

The system is bringing heavy rain and strong winds far inland. In just one hour, Isaias dropped an inch of rain in Raleigh, the National Weather Service’s office there reported. The city is about 150 miles northwest of Morehead City, on the coast.

As it brings perilous amounts of water, the storm is not expected to linger. By tonight, the weather service says, the center of Isaias will be moving into southern Canada.