MID-ATLANTIC — Severe thunderstorms impacted the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast United States from July 3 to July 8, 2026, leading to widespread power outages, evacuation warnings, a roof collapse, and flash flooding. Nearly one million customers experienced power outages at the peak of the storms over the Fourth of July holiday weekend.

The storms began in the Northeast on Friday afternoon, July 3, 2026, and prompted New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani to warn residents in basement apartments to prepare for evacuation on Sunday, July 5. Public schools in New York City opened as shelters late that day. Some outdoor Fourth of July celebrations in the Northeast were canceled due to the severe weather.

On Monday, July 6, 2026, a roof collapsed at a BJ's Wholesale Club in Ocean Township, Monmouth County, New Jersey, around 11:15 a.m. There were 27 people inside the building, but no significant injuries were reported. Flash flooding also occurred in Deal and Asbury Park, New Jersey, and parts of Long Island, New York, on the same day. North Carolina was under a Marginal Risk for severe thunderstorms.

The threat of severe weather continued through the week. Tuesday, July 7, 2026, was designated a Weather Impact Day for a marginal risk of severe thunderstorms and flash flooding in the Piedmont Triad area. This designation extended into Wednesday, July 8, 2026, with marginal-risk severe storms possible in the same region. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Storm Prediction Center issued a Level 1 out of 5 risk of severe storms for southern Virginia and northern North Carolina, including Raleigh, for July 8, identifying damaging wind gusts as the primary hazard.

The FOX Forecast Center indicated that more than 12,000 damaging wind reports had been recorded by the Storm Prediction Center across the Lower 48 states in 2026. "That is well above the typical pace for mid-July, when the average is around 8,700 reports — more than 3,000 fewer than this year's total," the FOX Forecast Center stated. They added, "In fact, July 4 was the busiest day of the year for severe weather reports across the East, with damaging winds accounting for most of those reports."