Thousands of U.S. Thousands were without power on the U.S. East Coast on Friday night, September 25, 2026, as a powerful nor’easter began flooding coastal New Jersey roads, disrupting flights, and triggering voluntary evacuations ahead of a weekend of severe conditions.
Tens of millions of people stretched along the Atlantic Seaboard are bracing for hazardous conditions as a strengthening low-pressure system moves north and northwest.
Coastal New Jersey Floods and Evacuation Orders
The storm’s early impacts hit the Mid-Atlantic hard on Friday. Roughly 34 miles up the coast in Manasquan, where local streets also went underwater, officials issued voluntary evacuations for low-lying sectors.
It’s going to be worse than average,
said Sea Bright Mayor Brian Kelly, whose tiny beach community braced for winds hitting 50 mph alongside anticipated street flooding of up to 6 feet. Kelly compared the incoming tide levels to the severe destruction left behind by Hurricane Irene in 2011, noting that the borough opened its recreation center for residents choosing to leave vulnerable properties.
Damaging Winds and Tree Hazards Across New England
Meteorologists warn that wind intensity will peak through Saturday night, particularly along coastal areas. Matthew Belk, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Norton, Massachusetts, noted that peak gusts could touch 60 to 65 mph across Cape Cod, Martha’s Vineyard, and Nantucket.
Unlike typical late-season storms, this early autumn nor’easter carries a distinct arboreal hazard. Because deciduous trees have not yet dropped their foliage, the remaining leaves create heavy wind resistance. This dynamic sharply increases the likelihood of snapped limbs, falling branches, and subsequent power outages across Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut.
Widespread Travel Disruptions and Event Cancellations
Transportation networks felt the immediate strain on Friday. More than 200 flights were grounded at airports in Boston, New York, Nantucket, and Martha’s Vineyard, with airlines offering fee waivers for weekend travelers. Public ferry connections linking Cape Cod to Nantucket and Martha’s Vineyard suffered sweeping cancellations alongside Rhode Island routes servicing Block Island.
For island commuters, transit suspensions are a familiar inconvenience. It’s a nuisance, but you know, we know what to do with this kind of stuff at this point,
said Sean Driscoll, a spokesperson for the Woods Hole, Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket Steamship Authority. This is not out of the realm of ordinary.
High-profile public events also yielded to the weather. Ed Sheeran scrapped back-to-back stadium concerts scheduled at Gillette Stadium in Foxborough, Massachusetts. In professional sports, the Boston Red Sox restructured their weekend series against the Chicago Cubs, pulling Sunday’s game forward to Friday afternoon to establish a split doubleheader.
Extended Weekend Forecast and Full Moon Tides
Forecasters report that the storm’s retrograde movement will loop its center back toward the New Jersey coast by Sunday, prolonging the window of damaging wind and rain. While the extended duration increases rainfall totals—with certain southeastern New England spots projected to receive upwards of 6 inches—the precipitation is spread out rather than arriving in a single flash deluge.
The coastal surge is further aggravated by a Saturday full moon, which brings some of the month’s highest astronomical tides. Authorities warn that repeated wave battering will trigger severe beach erosion from the Outer Banks of North Carolina up to the Jersey Shore before the system slowly weakens early next week.
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