Special Marine Warning Issued for Chesapeake Bay and Rappahannock River VA
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NWS Wakefield VA has issued a Special Marine Warning for portions of Chesapeake Bay and the Rappahannock River until 3:00 AM EDT due to a strong thunderstorm producing wind gusts of 34 knots or greater.
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- Record type
- Special Marine Warning
- Affected area
- Chesapeake Bay, Virginia
- Issued
- September 4, 2026
- Issuing authority
- NWS Wakefield VA
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 Wakefield VA. Effective from 2026-09-04T02:11:00-04:00 until 2026-09-04T03:00:00-04:00. Severity: Severe. Urgency: Immediate. Certainty: Likely.
Affected Areas
Chesapeake Bay from Smith Point to Windmill Point VA; Chesapeake Bay from Windmill Point to New Point Comfort VA; Rappahannock River from Urbanna to Windmill Point.
What You Should Do
Move to safe harbor until hazardous weather passes.
Expected Conditions
At 2:11 AM EDT, a strong thunderstorm was located over Lower Bernard Island, moving east at 30 knots. Hazard: Wind gusts 34 knots or greater. Impact: Small craft could be damaged in briefly higher winds and suddenly higher waves.
Timeline
Alert effective immediately on September 4, 2026 at 2:11 AM EDT and expires at 3:00 AM EDT the same day.
Original source: NOAA Official Notice ↗
Related Weather Alerts
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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 (829 characters here).
Similar severity timing
Same severity (high) notices issued closest in time to September 4, 2026.
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