BOSTON (AP) - A powerful nor’easter has knocked out power to thousands of homes and businesses in the U.S. Northeast, grounding hundreds of flights and prompting state leaders to declare emergencies. Two weekend concerts by pop star Ed Sheeran at Gillette Stadium outside Boston were canceled as a precaution.
High winds battered the coast from Delaware to Massachusetts Saturday, and conditions were expected to get worse in New York City as the day wears on, said Bob Oravec, a senior forecaster with the U.S. Weather Prediction Center.
Storm surges are expected to raise ocean levels by three feet along the New Jersey and New York coast, and even higher across New England. Saturday night’s full moon will make things worse by raising tides even higher.
 “The worst effects of it are tonight into Sunday morning, anywhere from southern New England west across Long Island toward New York City,” Oravec said. “The coastal flooding will be the biggest flooding impact for this.”
New York Governor Kathy Hochul declared an emergency in New York City and the surrounding areas on Friday as the storm developed, and New Jersey Governor Mikie Sherrill did the same for her state. From Massachusetts to Maryland, 101,674 homes and businesses were without power as of 1:15 pm, with areas in Queens, Long Island and along the New Jersey coast among the hardest-hit, according to Poweroutage.com. Trees are especially vulnerable as they still have their leaves, which could lead to falling branches that down more power lines.
Nearly 80,000 customers in New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Pennsylvania were without power as of 1:30am (0530 GMT) Sunday, according to the monitoring tool poweroutage.com.
Up to six inches (15 centimetres) of rain are expected on Long Island over the next few days.
“We expect waves as tall as 20 feet (six metres) in some areas,” Hochul said.
New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani warned residents of the country’s most populated city about strong wind gusts and the possibility of downed power lines, saying “Don’t travel if you don’t have to.”
The storm forced the cancellation of hundreds of flights on Sunday, with 171 to and from Boston’s Logan airport alone, and ongoing delays were reported across the region, according to tracker Flight Aware.
Major airlines including JetBlue, United and American issued travel alerts allowing passengers to change their flights without incurring fees.
The United Nations, where world leaders are gathered for the organization’s General Assembly, urged media outlets covering the event to clear broadcasting equipment from outside the New York headquarters due to strong winds.
Earlier this year, a Nor’easter that pummeled the northeast disrupted hundreds of flights and left thousands of homes and businesses without power.
That storm came weeks after the region recovered from a devastating winter weather system that was linked to more than 100 deaths.