Heavy Rain and Wind Batter Northeast, Bringing Coastal Flooding

The remains were a chunk of wooden beams still attached to iron fastenings.

Shipwrecks near the island were not uncommon during the Warren Sawyer’s time, Ms. Leonardo Finger said in a statement. She added that Nantucket residents were known to scavenge items as wreckage from ill-fated vessels washed ashore.

Now, “people sometimes forget that we live 28 miles at sea and also what life was like out here,” Ms. Leonardo Finger said. “I think this is an unfortunate but good reminder.”

Other pieces of the ship were discovered in 2023 near the site of the wreck on Nantucket’s south shore, according to The Nantucket Current, which was first to report the latest finding on Saturday.

Everyone aboard the Warren Sawyer survived the wreck, Ms. Leonardo Finger said. The ship had taken “merciless billows” from the ocean, snapping the mast into two pieces in front of a crowd of people who had been “excitedly watching it fall into the sea,” according to an article published in The Inquirer and Mirror, a Nantucket newspaper, on Jan. 10, 1885.

A rescuer rushed to the edge of the water and tossed a line that landed on the boat, saving the crew, according to the newspaper.

There were more than 700 shipwrecks in the waters surrounding Nantucket in the 19th century, according to the Nantucket Shipwreck & Lifesaving Museum.

The mayor of Manasquan, a borough along the New Jersey coast, had asked residents in low-lying homes to evacuate ahead of the storm. By late afternoon on Saturday, coastal areas like Asbury Park and Point Pleasant Beach, where summer tourism has slowed, had been doused in over two inches of rain, more than in many other places hit by the storm as it traveled along the East Coast.

Power outages in New Jersey peaked at more than 30,000 around noon. Emergency workers evacuated about 20 people from a hotel in Edgewater where waters had reached waist level. No deaths caused by the storm have been reported in the state.

Gov. Mikie Sherrill said there was a lull in storm conditions on Saturday afternoon but warned that “this storm is not over.” Wind gusts on the coast exceeded 50 miles per hour on Saturday and are expected to be strong again on Sunday.

The nor’easter has not come close to the deadly toll brought by Hurricane Sandy in 2012, but the whistling winds and flooded roads certainly brought back memories for some residents.

“Now that was real destruction,” Matthew Doherty, 53, said of Hurricane Sandy as he watched water overflow from the lagoon near his house in Belmar on Saturday. “We understand that when you live at sea level, there are times when storms are going to come out of the ocean,” he added.

In the borough of Sea Bright, many homes have been elevated since Hurricane Sandy. But Jennifer Moran, 58, said the flooding on Saturday still destroyed the contents of her garage.

“There were boats on our block rescuing people,” Ms. Moran said. “We got our antique car to higher ground just in time.”

Anjelica Lena, 41, cleaned out water that had flooded her oceanside restaurant nearby.

“We’ve got bad memories of Sandy,” Ms. Lena said. “But we still have all the benefits of being here. It’s a beautiful place to own a business.”

Only one bar was open along the Seaside Heights boardwalk as its famous Ferris wheel kept spinning with nobody riding it.

Beaches were mostly empty but had attracted some stragglers who wanted to see the waves pound the shore.

“Why are people drawn to these storms?” said James Zarrillo, 63, a lifelong resident of Seaside Heights. “It’s Mother Nature, I guess.”

Ron Carr, 55, joined onlookers along the Jersey Shore during a pit stop on his road trip from Massachusetts to Maryland.

“It’s so beautiful right now. The destruction through the waves is amazing,” Mr. Carr said. “It’s awesome. It’s fall on the Atlantic. Just embrace it.”

High school football games and an AC/DC concert scheduled for Friday night at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford were postponed. But people seemed to be getting a thrill in other ways.

“It’s fun to experience this,” said Mr. Doherty’s 12-year-old son, Seamus. “It’s the biggest storm I’ve even been a part of.”

Amy Graff, Alex Pena and Isabella Kwai contributed reporting.

Here’s what the rest of the day will look like in a few areas.

New York City: Intermittent rain is expected in the city through the day. Winds subsided in the afternoon, but they could pick back up this evening with possible gusts up to 50 miles per hour. The threat of coastal flooding will increase during the evening high tide.

Jersey Shore: The chance of wind, rain and coastal flooding will continue through the day. High tide will increase the risk this evening.

“There’s still the potential for winds up to 60 m.p.h. at the shore,” said Lee Robertson, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service.

So far, the region has recorded 0.75 to two inches of rain and could receive another one to two inches before the end of the day.

Eastern Massachusetts: There was a lull in the storm in the greater Boston area and along the Massachusetts coast during the early afternoon. Winds are expected to pick back up, particularly after sunset, with expected gusts up to 60 m.p.h.

Boston had recorded little rain by the early afternoon but could measure one to two inches by the end of the day. This region has not experienced a lot of coastal flooding, but the chance of it occurring will increase this evening during high tide, said Francis Tarasiewicz, a meteorologist with the Weather Service.

“Areas like Boston might see some minor flooding and localized flooding on roads,” Mr. Tarasiewicz said.

• The Hoboken River City Fair, a family-friendly festival on a waterfront scheduled for Saturday, was rescheduled to Oct. 3. Organizers said that some acts would no longer play on the new date.

Pennsylvania

• South Street Fall Fest, a street festival in Philadelphia scheduled for Saturday, was canceled. Organizers said that they did not have an alternative date.

• A Philadelphia Marathon training run, which had been set to take place Saturday, was canceled because of the risks posed by “severe high winds.” The organizers said they were working to determine a possible new date for the run.

Massachusetts

• Two Ed Sheeran concerts scheduled for Friday and Saturday at Gillette Stadium in Foxborough, Mass., were canceled. Gillette Stadium said refunds were available.

• A re-enactment of the Battle of Dighton in Dighton, Mass., scheduled for Saturday and Sunday, was moved to spring 2027. Organizers said a date would be determined later.

Maryland

• Oceans Calling Festival, a music festival scheduled for Friday through Sunday in Ocean City, Md., was canceled. Refunds are available, organizers said.

A continent away, Hurricane Nolo, which is threatening to soak the Big Island of Hawaii with rain, is being fueled by El Niño-warmed waters in the Pacific. Since August, a parade of hurricanes has battered Hawaii with an intensity that has caught even scientists off guard.

“I lived in Hawaii for 24 years and this is the craziest summer, the craziest fall, I’ve ever seen,” said Mark Merrifield, an ocean scientist and former director of the University of Hawaii Sea Level Center.

El Niño is part of a natural cycle in the Pacific Ocean that recurs every few years and brings a cascade of weather effects across the planet. Its strength typically peaks late in the calendar year. By some metrics, this one is already the strongest on record, an indication of how significantly it is likely to upend many regions’ normal weather patterns in the coming months.

People around the world are already dealing with the consequences. Indonesia is living under a haze of toxic smoke from wildfires worsened by drought. Crops have withered under dry conditions in India, Central America and parts of eastern Africa. Sea levels are rising on the coast of California, giving a leg up for storms and waves to flood homes and erode beaches.

And Hawaii is confronting an extraordinary spate of hurricanes, which are drawing strength from the thick layer of warm water that El Niño produces at the surface of the central and eastern Pacific.

Besides providing more energy for Pacific hurricanes, El Niño also creates conditions in the atmosphere that help them stick around and intensify, said Kim Wood, an associate professor in the department of hydrology and atmospheric sciences at the University of Arizona.

Hawaii has been threatened by such storms before, but never in rapid succession like this year. “It is quite unusual to get that kind of back-to-back-to-back experience,” Dr. Wood said. “And with how mountainous those islands are, the rain threat is just that much worse.”

When moist air hits mountains, it is forced upward, causing it to cool and release precipitation.

Before this year, only six hurricanes over the past seven decades had been recorded as passing within 50 miles of the state, according to Michael Lowry, a hurricane expert for WPLG-TV in Miami. Hurricane Nolo could become the third one to do so this year.

Scientists are working to understand whether human-caused global warming might be leading to more frequent, strong El Niños. They haven’t reached a clear consensus, though one thing is certain: The gyrations that El Niño brings are coming on top of an ocean and atmosphere already warmed by greenhouse gas emissions. That means the effects of an El Niño — whether downpours, wildfires or droughts — can potentially be more severe than they would have been in an earlier, cooler time for the planet.

El Niño’s influence on storms around the United States this year might just be getting started. Come winter, it is likely to help deliver more drenching rain to California. During some past El Niños, the perennially water-stressed state has received one and a half times its usual amount of precipitation, often through winter storms that recharge groundwater but can also cause flooding.

For the Northeast, El Niño doesn’t directly feed storms like the one pounding the coast this weekend, though nor’easters appear to be more frequent in El Niño years. One possible reason? El Niño causes the Pacific jet stream, or the band of air moving west to east at high altitudes, to shift south. That provides a supply of energy and moisture for storms that can take shape off the Southeastern United States then swing north.

The saving grace for eastern states is that El Niño generally leads to quiet Atlantic hurricane seasons. The shift in atmospheric patterns over the Pacific also increases upper-level winds over the Atlantic, making it harder for storms to spin up into hurricanes there.

So far this year, not a single storm in the Atlantic has managed to become a hurricane.

National Weather Service forecasters said in a weather message that a high wind warning will remain in effect until Sunday morning in the Boston area, where gusts could reach 60 miles per hour.

Smaller Massachusetts airports, like Nantucket Memorial and Martha’s Vineyard, also had cancellation rates exceeding 70 percent.

Airports in New York, Philadelphia and Newark, N.J., had relatively few cancellations as of Saturday morning, but air traffic controllers have similarly advised that passengers could be delayed if winds strengthen throughout the day as expected.

Heavy rainfall and flooding were the biggest concerns for the New York metropolitan area.

“Any place there’s a building,” she added, “they’re trying to have a party.”

Late September is “tented wedding season” in the coastal towns of the northeastern U.S., said Kristen Gosselin, an event planner based in Martha’s Vineyard. But the temporary outdoor structures are no match for torrential rain and wind gusts strong enough to topple trees.

As forecasts worsened and the National Weather Service issued flood and wind warnings this week, couples across the northeast were forced to rethink plans years in the making.

On Cape Cod, the storm put at risk about 40 outdoor, tented weddings planned for this weekend, Ms. Chase estimated. American Tent and Table, based in Barnstable, canceled six wedding tent rentals across the Cape ahead of the storm this weekend — an all-time high for one weekend in 25 years of business, said Allen Sylvester, the owner of the business.

Even in Farmington, Conn., an inland town, one couple — who picked their venue for its acre of lawns, willow trees and pergola — had to move everything indoors ahead of their Saturday wedding, fearing that the structures would collapse, said Kate Suba, 26, the bride-to-be.

“It’s different than what I had always imagined for myself,” Ms. Suba said.

On Block Island, off the coast of southern Rhode Island, Maya Bass, 28, and Jeffrey MacDougall, 31, spent last weekend collecting driftwood from the beach, fashioning a makeshift arch and planting it in the ground overlooking the water, where they intended to say their vows on Saturday. “Rain or shine, I planned to get married outside,” Ms. Bass said.

But in the face of the nor’easter, Ms. Bass’ resilience faltered.

The couple replanned their wedding in a matter of days, finding a new, mainland venue, florist, D.J. and accommodations for guests as all ferries to Block Island were grounded. Ferry services to Nantucket, Martha’s Vineyard and parts of Massachusetts were also suspended this weekend.

All that remains of the wedding the couple had long envisioned on Block Island, where Mr. MacDougall spent summers as a child, is their handmade arch.

“If that survives this nor’easter,” said Mr. MacDougall, “then that’s a symbol for us.”