This Morning’s Bulletin — 8.3.15

Good Morning!

• Today will be mostly sunny, with a high near 86 degrees and a southwest wind 5 to 13 miles per hour. There’s a high risk of rip currents on ocean beaches late this afternoon through this evening. We’re expecting a 50 percent chance of scattered showers and thunderstorms after midnight tonight, with a low around 70. Tomorrow, we’re expecting a 30 percent chance of showers and thunderstorms, mainly after noon, but otherwise it will be partly sunny, with a high near 89 degrees. Wednesday is expected to be mostly sunny, with a high near 83 degrees.

• The state DEC has reported excessive amounts of cyanobacteria (blue-green algae) at Fort Pond in Montauk, and the Suffolk County Health Department is asking residents not to use, swim or wade in these waters and to keep pets and children away from the area. While blue-green algae is not uncommon in East End waters, Fort Pond is not regularly sampled for algae blooms, but testing was stepped up in July after two dogs were sickened after swimming there. Blue-green algae blooms also persist at Wainscott Pond in Wainscott, Lake Agawam and Mill Pond in Southampton and Maratooka Lake in Mattituck. The health department is asking people to take extreme caution at Lake Agawam, where toxin levels are severely high. Blooms that had been reported earlier this season in Old Town Pond in Southampton and Kellis Pond in Bridgehampton have subsided.

• Suffolk County Executive Steve Bellone announced Friday that the county has advertised a bid to pave Main Street in Hampton Bays.  With the help of New York State and Southampton Town, the $1.7 million project is expected begin construction this October. The project will pave an approximately two-mile stretch of Montauk Highway from Route 24 to Bittersweet Road, which has not been repaved in the past decade.

• New Suffolk’s Houston Barn was torn down Friday, despite community protests, to make way for the new Galley Ho septic system. The Beacon’s full story is online here.

• Bluegrass players The Feinberg Brothers perform a free concert on the Montauk Green tonight at 6 p.m., Latinology performs a free concert at Greenport’s Mitchell Park tonight at 7:30 p.m. and the Village of Westhampton Beach hosts a free screening of “Raiders of the Lost Ark” on the Great Lawn tonight at dusk.

• The Beacon’s Week in Review was delivered piping hot to inboxes throughout the East End in the wee hours of Sunday morning. To get your own copy each week, sign up here.

And that’s the way things look at dawn’s light here today.