THE WEATHER BEAT · SEP 23

Storm watches went up over New England's waters overnight, and the tide reaches Hampton Roads today

Three offices added the rung above a gale for Thursday into Saturday, while coastal flood warnings run from Ocracoke to the Jersey shore.

By the Weather Rock September 23, 2026, 7:13 a.m. · 12 min read ShareCopy link

The coastal low that four days of products have been pointing at finally has a name in a forecaster's own file, and a new headline to go with it. Overnight, three National Weather Service offices from New Jersey to Cape Cod put storm watches over their offshore waters for Thursday night into Saturday. That is the step above the gale warnings that have been flying since Tuesday morning, and it is the first time this week anyone on the East Coast has used it.

Closer in, the water arrived on schedule. NWS Wakefield's 6:25 a.m. EDT package put coastal flood warnings up for all of Hampton Roads, and the office's 6:45 a.m. forecast discussion said why in one line: moderate flooding was expected with the morning high tide in multiple locations. On the Outer Banks, Hatteras Island and Ocracoke Island go under a warning at 2 p.m. for two to four feet of inundation, the largest number written anywhere on the coast today.

Yesterday and overnight: rain on the damming wedge

Eastern Virginia spent the night under cold air damming, a wedge of cool air pinned east of the Blue Ridge, with rain falling into it. NWS Wakefield's 3:45 a.m. EDT discussion described a nearly stationary band of rain running from west of Farmville to Cambridge, and reported one gauge total, with its own caveat attached: observations are limited, but a gauge in southwestern Powhatan has recorded 5.36 inches in 3 to 4 hours. That is a single gauge in a forecast discussion, not a verified storm total, and the office said as much.

The same office's marine section put the two pieces of the map in one sentence at 2:55 a.m. EDT: a developing low of about 1011 millibars a couple of hundred miles off the North Carolina coast, and strong high pressure of about 1038 millibars over southern Quebec. The pressure difference between those two is the northeast wind that has been pushing water into the Chesapeake all week.

Well away from any of it, six frost advisories were in effect at dawn across the upper Great Lakes and northern Vermont, from NWS Duluth, Green Bay, Marquette, Gaylord and Burlington. All of them expired between 7 and 9 a.m. local time.

Today, officially: the storm watch

The new product is the storm watch, and it is a marine headline. The watches carry the products' own phrase, storm force winds, and each one is written alongside the gale warning it follows, so the offices are describing a two stage week on the water: gales today and Thursday, potentially worse Friday and Saturday.

Ten storm watches were active nationally at 11:07 a.m. UTC, all ten from those three offices. The only storm warnings in the country were three from NWS Anchorage. Of the 79 gale warnings active at the same minute, 45 were Alaskan, from Anchorage and Juneau, and 34 ran the East Coast from Wilmington, North Carolina to Boston. Source: NWS active alerts, api.weather.gov, read at 11:07 to 11:20 a.m. UTC.

Today, officially: the tide

Fifteen coastal flood warnings were active this morning, from three offices, and they were the only coastal flood warnings in the country.

Inundation figures are the products' own, stated as feet above ground level in low lying areas near shorelines and tidal waterways. Sent times: Wakefield 6:25 a.m., Morehead City 4:48 a.m., Mount Holly 4:28 a.m. EDT.

The impact wording still separates the offices, the way it did last night. Morehead City writes that portions of Highway 12 will be inundated and that low lying property including homes, businesses and some critical infrastructure will be inundated, in the plain future tense. Mount Holly writes that widespread roadway flooding occurs at this level, many roads become impassable, and some damage to vulnerable structures may begin to occur. Wakefield's wind advisory reason, given in the 6:45 a.m. discussion, is that winds will likely gust in excess of 50 mph this afternoon into Thursday night along the immediate coast.

Up the Chesapeake, NWS Baltimore and Washington held its line. At 3:59 a.m. EDT the office wrote that a long duration coastal flood event is expected over the next several days within persistent onshore flow, that overnight changes were small, and that decisions would likely need to be made this morning regarding whether watches are converted to warnings or advisories. As of the 11:07 a.m. UTC wire, that office had five coastal flood advisories and three watches up, at Annapolis, Alexandria, Straits Point, Dahlgren and Solomons Island, and no warnings.

What the offices say they do not know

Three discussions said the weekend is unsettled in the forecasting sense, not the weather sense.

- NWS Boston/Norton, 1:55 a.m. EDT: a strong coastal low pressure system will bring impacts to southern New England in the form of rain, rough seas, strong winds, and coastal flooding or erosion Friday into the weekend. Exact timing and magnitude of the winds and rain remain unknown.

- NWS Upton, 4:04 a.m. EDT: global models in agreement with a coastal low tracking southeast of the area during the Friday to Saturday period, but differences show up regarding how close the center of the storm will be and whether or not it lingers nearby or retrogrades closer into Sunday.

- NWS Wakefield, 6:45 a.m. EDT: confidence in the forecast for this weekend remains below average due to uncertainties with a developing coastal low.

NWS Baltimore and Washington used the word the rest of the week has been circling, in its second key message at 3:59 a.m. EDT: breezy and warmer this weekend, but forecast remains uncertain as Nor'easter impacts Northeast U.S.

Elsewhere

The Storm Prediction Center's day 1 outlook carried a Marginal Risk as its highest category, with thunderstorms and isolated severe wind gusts and hail possible this afternoon across parts of the southern Appalachians. Two flash flood warnings were issued overnight by NWS El Paso for Dona Ana and Otero counties in New Mexico and El Paso County, Texas, both expiring before 6 a.m. MDT. The National Hurricane Center's 09:00 UTC advisories carried Hurricane Odalys at 65 knots, Hurricane Polo at 135 knots and Tropical Depression Fifteen-E at 30 knots, all in the eastern and central Pacific, with no watches or warnings for the United States.

Two products this brief would normally check were unavailable to us again this morning. The Storm Prediction Center's preliminary storm reports for yesterday and the Weather Prediction Center's day 1 excessive rainfall outlook both returned HTTP 403 to our wire tool, the tenth straight day. Their absence from this brief is our reach, not their silence.

This is a summary of official warnings, not emergency information. For live warnings see weather.gov and your local officials.

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