Severe storms threaten damaging winds, hail and outages from Detroit to Philadelphia
Damaging winds. Power cuts. Hazardous travel after dark. Those are the main risks as several U.S. cities face separate rounds of severe thunderstorms, with a...
Damaging winds. Power cuts. Hazardous travel after dark. Those are the main risks as several U.S. cities face separate rounds of severe thunderstorms, with alerts out from Metro Detroit to New York City and the Philadelphia region.
In Southeast Michigan, forecasters warned Thursday night’s storm line could sweep across Metro Detroit between 9 p.m. and 2 a.m. Friday, with the strongest cells reaching Oakland, Wayne and Macomb counties around 10 p.m. to midnight before moving toward the Lake Huron shoreline. Straight-line winds are the chief concern, and gusts could reach about 70 mph if the line stays organized.
Night storms raise the stakes
That kind of wind can topple trees, tear at roofs and siding, knock out power and make roads dangerous. The overnight timing makes it worse. People are less likely to hear alerts, and drivers can run into sudden sheets of rain and falling debris with little warning.
Farther east, New York City Emergency Management and the National Weather Service issued an alert for the five boroughs Sunday, warning of severe thunderstorms and damaging winds from Sunday afternoon into early Monday morning. The highest-risk window was expected between roughly 4 p.m. and 2 a.m. Monday. Officials said storms could build fast, with gusts topping 60 mph, frequent lightning and brief but intense downpours.
Busy skies, fast-moving storms
Residents in New York were urged to monitor Notify NYC, keep phones and other devices charged and be ready for possible outages. “Storms can hit hard and without much warning,” Mayor Zohran Mamdani said in a statement, pressing people to take the advisories seriously.
In South Dakota, KOTA said a First Alert Weather Day was in effect Friday as storms threatened the Black Hills and the Interstate 90 corridor, including Rapid City. Meteorologist Ryan Hill said storms could fire up around 1 p.m. in the northern and central Black Hills and move south later in the day. Large hail and wind gusts of 70 mph or more were possible.
The storm threat also spread into the Mid-Atlantic. NBC Philadelphia reported a First Alert for the Philadelphia region, Pennsylvania suburbs, south Jersey and Delaware on Sunday, with severe storms expected to bring damaging winds, large hail and a tornado threat. That alert covered Sunday afternoon through 10 p.m., when storms could produce gusts near 70 mph.
More alerts on the map
WBAL-TV reported a severe thunderstorm threat across Maryland on Sunday afternoon, with damaging winds, hail and tornadoes possible before conditions eased later in the evening. In that case, forecasters said a line of showers and thunderstorms crossing the Appalachians had already weakened by late night.
For many of these regions, the pattern is familiar: heat or humidity builds the energy, then a front or leftover boundary gives storms a push. The result can be sharp, messy and short-lived — but still strong enough to down trees, cut power and disrupt travel in a matter of minutes. In Metro Detroit, the strongest storms could reach the Lake Huron shoreline by about 1 a.m. Friday.
