Northeast Braces for Strong Storm Forecast to Hit on Friday

The Northeast, possibly including New York City, is expected to get hit with flooding rain and high winds from a powerful storm system that’s set to take shape off the East Coast on Friday. Computer forecasts disagree on the storm’s exact track but somewhere from the Mid-Atlantic to the coast of Massachusetts is going to be hit by high winds and heavy rain. The current forecast calls for the Boston area and Cape Cod to get as much as 7 inches (18 centimeters) of rain through the weekend, said Bob Oravec, a senior branch forecaster at the US Weather Prediction Center. A track further west would bring more dangers to New York City and coastal New Jersey and Long Island. “It is going to be a strong storm,” Oravec said. “It is non-tropical, but it can still have high winds. Its structure is more like a typical colder season storm.” The system is likely to impact ground and air travel across the region, as well as generating cascading affects nationally. There is also a risk of flooding and widespread power outages. There are already coastal warnings and watches along the East Coast from Massachusetts to Virginia as the pieces of the storm come together. Tides are expected to rise higher than normal along New Jersey’s southern shore and rip currents will strike beaches from Long Island to Boston. The Midwest, Mid-Atlantic and parts of New England have all seen waves of thunderstorms this summer that have grounded thousands of flights and caused massive power outages. In July, residents in upstate New York had to flee their homes when heavy rains set records in Albany and brought almost a foot of precipitation to the surrounding area. Copyright 2026 Bloomberg. Topics Trends Windstorm Was this article valuable? Thank you! Please tell us what we can do to improve this article. Thank you! % of people found this article valuable. Please tell us what you liked about it. Here are more articles you may enjoy.