US Northeast Braces for Flooding as Coastal Storm Brews

A powerful coastal storm is building off the U.S. Northeast, threatening to bring torrential rain across parts of eastern Massachusetts and raising flood risks to New York City, New Jersey and Washington, D.C. into the weekend.

The Nor’easter system is forecast to churn up waves as high as 30 feet (9 meters) and pound the Mid-Atlantic and New England coastline, said Rob Carolan, president of Hometown Forecast Services. In addition, eastern Massachusetts may get as much as 5 inches of rain starting Friday and through the weekend.

“It looks like a decent storm,” Carolan said. “The ocean is going to get turned up.”

Coastal flood advisories and warnings stretch from just south of Newark, New Jersey to Virginia Beach and run up the Potomac River toward Washington. As the storm comes together, Carolan said those advisories will almost certainly spread north to New York, Long Island and New England.

Winds are also forecast to gust as high as 32 miles (51 kilometers) per hour in New York City Friday night and even higher in Boston over the weekend. The combination of high winds and rain raises the risk of power outages and airline delays just as global leaders and executives attempt to depart New York after this week’s meetings at the United Nations.

Top photo: People walk with umbrellas as rain falls in the Queens borough of New York on Sept. 1. Bloomberg.