A powerful nor'easter battered the northeastern United States on Friday and Saturday, killing one person in Brooklyn, knocking out power to tens of thousands of homes and businesses, and grounding hundreds of flights at the region's busiest airports. Governors in New York and New Jersey declared states of emergency as forecasters warned the storm would keep lashing the coast with high winds, heavy rain and dangerous tides through the weekend.
 |
| File photo: A person wades through a flooded street in New Jersey during an earlier nor'easter in October 2025. The latest storm brought similar flooding to the region. (NBC News) |
The storm, a large cyclone that forms off the East Coast and drives wind and rain inland from the northeast, swept up the I-95 corridor on Friday, November 6, and stalled over New England. By Saturday evening it had flooded coastal streets, toppled trees, snapped power lines and thrown air travel across the country into disarray. It struck on the same day the Federal Aviation Administration began cutting flights nationwide because of the record-long federal government shutdown, compounding one of the worst travel days of the year.
A Deadly Day in New York
The storm turned deadly in New York City on Saturday. The New York City Housing Authority said one of its employees was killed by a fallen tree in Brooklyn as the storm battered the city with rain and strong winds, according to Al Jazeera.
New York Governor Kathy Hochul said coastal areas of New York City and Long Island were especially affected by the storm, and New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani urged residents not to travel. The governors of New York and New Jersey had declared states of emergency on Friday in the counties expected to see the worst of the storm.
Bob Oravec, a lead forecaster with the National Weather Service in College Park, Maryland, said the storm was likely to persist, with "a lot of high winds, a lot of high tides and heavy rain possibility over the next few days for the northeastern US". The National Weather Service warned that the storm would bring major coastal flooding to the Mid-Atlantic coast over multiple high-tide cycles through the weekend.
Power Outages Across the Northeast
The storm's winds, with gusts reported above 60 miles per hour, snapped power lines across the region and left tens of thousands of people in the dark. About 95,000 people across New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Pennsylvania were without power as of Saturday afternoon, according to reports, while a later count on Saturday night put the figure at nearly 73,000 homes and businesses.
PowerOutage.US figures showed more than 71,000 customers without power in New York alone, with nearly 36,000 affected in Massachusetts, more than 16,000 in New Hampshire and roughly 13,500 in Vermont. Utility crews faced delays in restoring power because of dangerous wind conditions and localized road flooding, and officials warned that some outages could continue for days.
In New Jersey, waterfront areas of Point Pleasant reported deep standing water on roadways, prompting voluntary evacuations. Emergency management agencies advised residents along the Atlantic coastline to take rigorous safety precautions as the storm was expected to persist into early next week.
 |
| File photo: An NYPD traffic car drives through a flooded street in New York City during heavy rain in September 2023. Rain and high tides again swamped streets across the region this weekend. (Getty Images via Fox Weather) |
Travel Chaos: Flights Grounded
Air travel took a heavy hit. About 425 flights were cancelled and 3,016 delayed as of 9:50 p.m. Eastern time on Friday, according to data from the flight tracker FlightAware. The Federal Aviation Administration issued ground stops at John F. Kennedy, LaGuardia, Newark Liberty and Boston Logan airports as low visibility, unpredictable wind shear and the potential for lightning strikes made flying unsafe.
The disruption was worst at LaGuardia, where 577 flights were delayed and 249 cancelled on Friday, followed by Newark Liberty with 514 delays and 118 cancellations, Boston Logan with 529 delays and 94 cancellations, and John F. Kennedy with 502 delays and 52 cancellations. Hundreds more flights were cancelled on Saturday, including 253 at Boston Logan alone, according to FlightAware.
Amtrak also cancelled regional passenger services between Boston and Philadelphia because of downed wires and track hazards, and bus bridges were deployed between Harrisburg and Philadelphia. The cancellations rippled across the country, stranding connecting passengers far from the storm.
A Second Blow: FAA Flight Cuts Begin
The storm hit on the same day the Federal Aviation Administration's emergency order to cut flights at 40 of the country's busiest airports took effect, adding a second layer of chaos to an already miserable travel day.
The order, announced on Wednesday by Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy and FAA Administrator Bryan Bedford, requires airlines to cut 4 percent of domestic flights at the affected airports between 6 a.m. and 10 p.m. The cuts deepen in steps if the government shutdown continues: 6 percent by November 11, 8 percent by November 13 and 10 percent by November 14. International flights are exempt, and airlines that fly above their limit face a fine of 75,000 dollars for each extra flight.
The reason is staffing. About 13,000 air traffic controllers and 50,000 airport security screeners have been working without pay since the federal government shutdown began on October 1. The shutdown reached its 38th day on Friday, making it the longest in American history, passing the 35-day record set in 2018 and 2019, with no agreement in Congress to end it. The FAA was already about 3,500 controllers short of its staffing target before the shutdown began.
More than 1,000 flights were cancelled and over 4,300 delayed across the United States on the first day of the cuts, according to FlightAware. SkyWest cancelled 178 flights and Southwest 129. Aviation analytics firm Cirium estimates that at the full 10 percent cut, about 1,800 flights and 268,000 seats a day would be affected. Duffy has warned that if the shutdown continues, the public will see "mass chaos" involving delays, cancellations and potentially airspace closures.
Thunderstorms halted flights at Kennedy, LaGuardia and Newark on Friday morning even as the mandated cuts took hold. Either way, passengers faced one of the worst days for American air travel since the September 11 attacks.
What This Means
The nor'easter is a reminder of how quickly a familiar kind of storm can overwhelm the Northeast in late autumn. The region has seen powerful nor'easters before, including one in October that brought coastal flooding and 50 mph gusts. This week's storm arrived with the same ingredients: a slow-moving area of low pressure parked off the coast, a steady feed of Atlantic moisture, and high tides that pushed seawater into streets that were already drowning in rain.
The timing made it worse. The storm struck just as the federal shutdown had already stretched the aviation system to its limit, with unpaid controllers working short-staffed towers. The result was a travel meltdown that neither the weather nor the shutdown could have produced alone. For residents, the lesson is the same one the region relearns every few years: a nor'easter does not need to be a hurricane to kill, to flood a neighborhood, or to shut down a city.
 |
| File photo: Waves crash over a seawall onto a coastal road in Massachusetts during a nor'easter in March 2023. Forecasters warned of major coastal flooding through the weekend. (Fox Weather) |
What Happens Next
The National Weather Service still warns of a slight elevated risk of excessive rain for the coastal Mid-Atlantic and southern New England through the weekend, with the most severe effects of the storm expected to have passed by Sunday. Flood warnings were expected to remain in effect in Massachusetts until Sunday morning, when the storm was expected to move on.
Meanwhile, a separate storm system threatens the other end of the country. Parts of Central and South Texas face a dangerous flood threat through the weekend as an El Nino-fueled storm pattern sets up across the southern tier, with the greatest danger expected on Sunday. Widespread rainfall of up to 2 inches is forecast from the Texas Hill Country to the Gulf Coast through Tuesday, with localized amounts of up to 4 inches. Texas Hill Country is especially vulnerable to flooding: the July 4, 2025 floods there killed 135 people when the Guadalupe River rose to record-breaking heights.
For the Northeast, the work now turns to cleanup and restoration. Utility crews will keep working through the weekend to restore power, airlines will try to clear the backlog of stranded passengers, and officials in New York and New Jersey will assess the damage from a storm that, in the space of two days, killed one person, darkened tens of thousands of homes and brought the busiest travel corridor in the country to a standstill.
Post a Comment