Why the nor'easter’s storm surge was so high, and what it says about the El Niño winter ahead

A late-September 2026 nor'easter pushed the highest water levels into Atlantic City since Superstorm Sandy in 2012, flooding homes, eroding dunes, and knocking out power along the coast from North Carolina to New York. A storm scientist explains that the surge was worsened by the storm's slow pace, its timing near a full moon's larger tides, and shallow bays like Raritan and Delaware that concentrate incoming water with nowhere to go.

Sea-level rise compounds the problem: Atlantic City's waters are rising roughly two inches per decade, partly due to the land still settling from the retreat of ice-age glaciers thousands of years ago. Even without stronger storms, that creeping rise means more places flood with each future nor'easter.

Whether this storm previews a rough El Niño winter is uncertain; one study links strong nor'easters to El Niño years, and seasonal forecasts suggest above-normal East Coast precipitation, but there are too few comparably strong El Niños in the historical record to say for sure.

The full dispatch is available from the source below.