Above: A screenshot of a National Weather Service image showing the projected 5-day track of Tropical Storm Andrea as it moves up the East Coast, as of Thursday afternoon. For a current image, check the NWS's Tropical Storm Andrea page.

Heavy rains and possible flooding are in store for the Catskills region this weekend, starting Friday morning, as the area braces for two storm systems moving into the region.

First on the forecast is a rainstorm moving through the region from the west, beginning Thursday night and continuing into Friday. By Friday afternoon, a tropical storm dubbed "Andrea" will move in from the south, dumping more rain onto an already-saturated landscape. Andrea is not expected to strengthen into a hurricane, but is forecast to bring heavy rains and high winds to a wide swath of the eastern U.S.

A gas station just across the street from Hunter Mountain was on lockdown for several hours Wednesday night, after a bomb threat was called in to state police.

The Daily Mail reports that the Valero station was searched and declared safe:

New York State Police in Kingston said the gas station was locked down and the area around the building was cordoned off. An evacuation of the immediate surrounding area was ordered and police set up a perimeter around the gas station. People living beyond the evacuated area were told by police to stay in their homes.

A K-9 unit with a bomb-sniffing dog was brought in and the scene was declared safe at about 10:30 p.m., when police began allowing people back into the area.

Nothing suspicious was found, and the area was reopened.

For the second time in a year, the Walton Central School District has been besieged with virulent Facebook threats made against children.

On Monday evening, a message was posted on a local Facebook group threatening to shoot elementary school children in Walton, and then quickly deleted. The message, from user "Taylor Elizabeth" (possibly a fake or hacked account) read: 

Someone sent me a message and it said this...just wanted ta pass it on not looking for drama plz .......KIDS ARE GOING TO DIE TMO (TUE) AT THE WALTON LITTLE SCHOOL. ;) .  BANGBANG THEIR ALL DEAD!!! Kin..  1st and 2nd. & if I get that far 3rd Haha....(;

Left: A threat directed at children in the Walton Central School District, posted to a local group on Monday, June 3.

Voters in Schoharie County's Middleburgh Central School District voted down this year's proposed $20,277,789 budget on May 21 by just 25 votes: 374 for to 399 against.

Now, with a second budget vote looming on June 18, the district has proposed a new budget with about $88,000 in additional cuts, bringing the total spending for the year down to $20,189,789 if adopted. 

The new proposed budget would increase the tax levy in the district by 2.68 percent, and would represent an increase in spending of 0.2 percent over the current year's spending. Property taxes account for slightly more than 40 percent of funding for the district's annual budget, with most of the rest coming from state aid.

View from the top of Overlook Mountain. Photo by Greg Miller; courtesy of the Open Space Institute.

Over 250 acres near the summit of Overlook Mountain in Woodstock became part of the Catskill Forest Preserve recently, with the completion of a long-planned purchase of two land parcels by the state Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) from the Open Space Institute (OSI).

The two properties -- a 191-acre area known as the California Quarry property, once owned by the town of Woodstock, and a 75-acre parcel that once belonged to the Kharma Triyana Dharmachakra monastery near the Overlook trailhead -- were bought for preservation by the OSI in 2008 and 2005 respectively. The state paid $857,800 for the pair of properties, from the Environmental Protection Fund.