This is a breaking news story and will be updated.
UPDATE 4:36 p.m.: State Fair officials have announced the State Fair will be closing at 6 p.m. Wednesday due to weather concerns. The final concert of the day, by artist Tori Kelly at Suburban Park, was moved to a 5 p.m. start.
Officials took the almost unprecedented step of shutting down the New York State Fair Wednesday morning after extremely heavy rains caused flooding described by one person as above the knee.
Around 10:30 a.m., the Fair texted all fairgoers to urge them to stay away from the area of the Exposition Center and the goat/llama/swine barns on the western end of the grounds due to flooding.
An hour later, around 11:30, another text urged fairgoers to shelter indoors. At noon, the Fair texted: "The Fair is temporarily closed due to flooding until waters recede, and the 1pm concert is postponed." Any arriving vehicles were being sent to the Orange Lot to wait.
The Fair reopened just after 12:30 p.m., but the Grey Lot on the western end of the grounds is closed due to flooding and the west end of the grounds, including Restaurant Row, was being cleared of water.
Elisa Morales, superintendent of the Latino Village, told WRVO that floodwaters were up to the knees of people in the western end of the grounds and it was even ankle-deep in her village, which sits on an elevated parcel of land.
She said vendors and exhibitors have definitely suffered some damage.
The last time the Fair shut down was on Labor Day, 1998, when heavy overnight storms killed a vendor and a volunteer.
Another wave of strong storms and high winds is expected late Wednesday. The National Weather Service has issued a Tornado Watch for most of central and Northern New York until 11:00 p.m.
[Disclosure: The author of this story worked for the Fair as its public relations and marketing manager until 2023.]
