A 55-year-old Port Ewen man who decided to take his Jeep off-roading in the town of Ulster on Sunday slid off the trail, and had to be rescued by state police and local fire companies. 

According to a statement from state troopers, the man, who police did not identify, was driving on a trail near Jockey Hill Road when his Jeep failed to negotiate a turn, slid about 25 feet backward down an embankment, and came to rest on a ridge overhanging a large hill.

The man was unhurt in the accident, and called 911 from his cell phone. State troopers and firefighters from Ulster Hose #5 and the Ruby Fire Department found him and his vehicle with the aid of a six-wheel ATV, and the man was transported to Kingston Hospital for evaluation.

Photo from the Friends of the Kaaterskill Rail Trail's Facebook page.

The Greene County mountaintop region will be celebrating National Trails Day in style this year: With the opening of a new rail trail through the heart of the Catskills' grand old hotel country. The new Kaaterskill Rail Trail in Haines Falls opens to the public on Saturday, June 1 with a kickoff party that includes guided hikes and free barbecue.

Once a footpath that connected the legendary Catskill Mountain House to Haines Falls, later a rail corridor for the Ulster & Delaware Railroad, the completed Phase 1 of the Kaaterskill Rail Trail is a roughly 1.5-mile trail with views of Kaaterskill Falls and the remains of the once-great mountaintop hotels. Phase 2, still in the planning stage, will eventually connect the rail trail to the Escarpment Trail and North-South Lake campground.

Lightning from a thunderstorm on Wednesday, May 29, taken between Grand Gorge and Stamford. Photo by Michelle Ogborn; shared on the Watershed Post's Facebook page.

A fierce rainstorm that swept through upstate New York on Wednesday night caused flash flooding in several spots in the Western Catskills, as the heavy rains swelled small creeks and ditches. 

Parts of Delaware and Schoharie County, where the rainfall was hardest, got over two inches of rain over the course of the two- to three-hour storm. According to data from the National Weather Service, the Schoharie County town of Jefferson had 2.4 inches. In the hamlet of Meridale, just outside of Delhi, rainfall was reportedly 2.25 inches.

The West Branch of the Delaware River also overflowed its banks in some spots. But the flash flooding from smaller creeks as they were overwhelmed with rainfall caused more problems than the rise in larger rivers, according to Richard Bell, director of Delaware County Emergency Services.

*Update, 8:45pm: The tornado warning has been cancelled:

BGM cancels Tornado Warning forDelaware [NY] till 9:15 PM EDT nwschat.weather.gov/vtec/#2013-O-C…

— NWSBinghamton (@NWSBinghamton) May 30, 2013

The National Weather Service has issued a tornado warning for eastern Delaware County. The warning, issued at 8:10pm, is in effect until 9:15pm. 

From the NWS warning:

AT 809 PM EDT...NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE DOPPLER RADAR INDICATED A SEVERE THUNDERSTORM CAPABLE OF PRODUCING A TORNADO NEAR ANDES... MOVING EAST AT 40 MPH.