A rare September nor'easter reaches the Northeast at full strength on Saturday: gusts of 50 to 60 mph on the coast, days of rain, and flooding at every high tide under a full moon. With the trees still in leaf, a power outage is the likeliest way it reaches you inland. What to do before Saturday, how long to plan for, and the two Pacific hurricanes, Polo and Nolo.
A nor'easter is strengthening several hundred miles off the East Coast and tracking north. It reaches the Northeast at peak strength on Saturday, then lingers near the coast through Monday, losing strength only slowly, which turns one bad day into a long siege of wind, rain and high water. More than 40 million people will feel it through Sunday, from the North Carolina Outer Banks to New England, and Boston's mayor called it a rare storm for this time of year.
The numbers: wind gusts of 50 to 60 mph from New Jersey and Long Island to southern New England, strongest on the coast south of Boston toward Cape Cod, and 40 to 50 mph in New York City. Two inches of rain or more from New Jersey to southeast New England. Minor to moderate flooding at every high tide all weekend, made worse by Saturday's full moon, and waves of up to 22 feet off New England.
The Mid-Atlantic has been taking a beating for days already. Waves breached a dune on North Carolina's Outer Banks and damaged about 500 feet of Highway 12 at Rodanthe, streets in Norfolk flooded, and Atlantic City and Nags Head closed their beaches to swimming. The worst should start to ease in the Northeast on Sunday afternoon, with rain and wind hanging on into Monday.
Because the trees still have their leaves. A tree in full leaf catches the wind like a sail, and days of rain soften the ground it stands in, so a gust a bare winter tree would shrug off can bring it down across a line. Forecasters are warning about exactly that this weekend. Boston has activated its emergency operations center through Monday and expects falling trees to take power lines down with them, and Monmouth County in New Jersey has told residents to charge their devices and stock up on batteries.
It has happened before. In late October 2011, a nor'easter dropped heavy, wet snow on trees that had not yet lost their leaves, and more than 3 million customers lost power. In Connecticut, many waited as long as 11 days. This storm brings wind and rain rather than snow, but the trees are just as full, and restoration always runs in the same order: the big lines and the hospitals first, whole neighborhoods next, and the single house with a tree across its own wire last.
So plan for days, not hours. On Long Island, residents told a local TV station they were bracing to stay home for a few days. That is the right instinct, and it turns the question into arithmetic: how many days can your household manage with no power, no store run and no way out? Issue 23 walks through a long outage step by step, and the count is the same one MyPlann does for you.
Power out, roads blocked and stores shut for days at a time is the Grid Down scenario. MyPlann counts your household's days from what is actually on your shelves and tells you which shortage ends them first.
Tonight, charge every phone, battery pack and laptop, and put flashlights and fresh batteries where you can find them in the dark; skip the candles. Fill the car's tank, because gas pumps need power too. Turn the fridge and freezer to their coldest settings. A full freezer keeps food frozen for about 48 hours with the door shut, a half-full one for about 24, and a closed refrigerator stays safe for about 4, so fill the empty space with bottles of water.
Water is a gallon per person per day. If your water comes from a well, the pump stops when the power does, so fill the bathtub for flushing and jugs for drinking before the wind arrives. If you have a generator, run it outside only, never in a garage or near a window, and more than 20 feet from the house: carbon monoxide from generators kills people after storms every year. If your basement floods in heavy rain, test the sump pump now and move what matters off the floor.
Then the two things that are easy to forget. Refill any medicine someone would be in danger without, today, while the pharmacies are open and have power. And agree on the family plan: who everyone texts, and where you meet if you get home and cannot go in, as Issue 36 set out. On the coast, one rule overrides everything here: if officials order an evacuation, go. MyPlann's numbers are about staying home safely, never a reason to stay when you are told to leave.
The Pacific has already had more storms this year than it usually sees in a whole season. Hurricane Polo regained Category 5 strength on Friday with 180 mph winds, about 290 miles southwest of Cabo Corrientes, Mexico. By pressure it is the second-strongest eastern Pacific hurricane on record, behind Patricia in 2015. It is forecast to weaken before it reaches Baja California Sur on Monday, but the National Hurricane Center expects 4 to 8 inches of rain there, up to 10 in places, with life-threatening flooding and mudslides. Mexico has ordered evacuations and opened shelters.
Hawaii is bracing again. Hurricane Nolo strengthened quickly on Friday about 200 miles south of the Big Island and is expected to pass closest late Friday into Saturday, local time, possibly as a major hurricane. The Hurricane Center warns of 10 to 15 inches of rain on the Big Island's eastern and southern slopes, and up to 25 in the steepest terrain. It is the state's third hurricane threat in six weeks, after Lala in August and Lowell in early September, and Governor Josh Green has declared a state of emergency.
The lesson from Lowell, which we covered in Issue 30, applies to all three storms: a storm does not have to hit you to hurt you. Lowell never made landfall and still cut power to most of Kauai. Whether it is a nor'easter off New Jersey or a hurricane off the Big Island, the household that rides it out best is the one that knew how many days it could manage before the power went out.
Wind, flooding and a long outage all at once is the Hurricane scenario. MyPlann works out how long your household can stay home through it and what runs out first.
MyPlann maps your real preparedness level against every scenario in this brief — and shows you exactly what to address first. Free during early access.
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