Special Marine Warning for NC Coastal Waters
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NWS Newport/Morehead City NC issued a Special Marine Warning for waters from Cape Hatteras to Cape Lookout until 3:45 AM EDT due to a strong thunderstorm with 40-knot wind gusts.
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- Record type
- Special Marine Warning
- Affected area
- North Carolina Coast
- Issued
- August 24, 2026
- Issuing authority
- NWS Newport/Morehead City NC
Marine notices apply to named waters or shoreline zones. They may not describe conditions on land, even when the nearest place name is the same.
Record status: publication date is recent, but current status is not stored on this page. Check the issuing agency's live warning service before acting because warnings can be updated, narrowed, or cancelled.
Alert Details
Special Marine Warning issued by NWS Newport/Morehead City NC. Effective from 2026-08-24T02:40:00-04:00 until 2026-08-24T03:45:00-04:00. Severity: Severe. Urgency: Immediate. Certainty: Likely.
Affected Areas
Waters from Cape Hatteras to Ocracoke Inlet NC from 20 to 60 NM; Waters from Ocracoke Inlet to Cape Lookout NC from 20 to 60 NM.
What You Should Do
Move to safe harbor immediately as gusty winds and high waves are expected. Frequent lightning is occurring with this storm. If caught on the open water stay below deck if possible, keep away from ungrounded metal objects.
Expected Conditions
At 2:39 AM EDT, a strong thunderstorm was located 22 nm southeast of Ar250, or 29 nm east of Atlas Tanker, moving northeast at 20 knots. Hazard: Wind gusts to 40 knots. Impact: Small craft could be damaged in briefly higher winds and suddenly higher waves. The strong thunderstorm will remain over mainly open waters.
Timeline
Alert effective August 24 at 2:40 AM EDT until August 24 at 3:45 AM EDT.
Original source: NOAA Official Notice ↗
Related Weather Alerts
All Weather Alerts →Nationwide notices with similar length or severity timing 8
Two Areazine-derived peer sets for this NWS weather alert: nearest notices by body length and by same severity near the same agency date. Peers come from other categories so they are not the same-feed Related list above.
Similar body length
Nearest notices by article body length (1,032 characters here).
Similar severity timing
Same severity (high) notices issued closest in time to August 24, 2026.
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