Special Marine Warning Issued for Chesapeake Bay and Rappahannock River VA
This alert is no longer in effect.
NOAA issued it on July 9, 2026, 6 weeks ago. Warnings of this kind stay in effect for hours to a few days, so this page is a historical record of what was issued, not a current warning. For conditions where you are right now, check weather.gov (US), weather.gc.ca (Canada), the Met Office (UK), or the Bureau of Meteorology (Australia).
Areazine synthesizes this NWS weather alert directly from NOAA's official public data feed. See our methodology for full source attribution and refresh cadence.
NWS Wakefield VA has issued a Special Marine Warning for Chesapeake Bay zones and the Rappahannock River until 8:30 PM EDT due to a strong thunderstorm producing wind gusts to 40 knots.
Read this weather record in 30 seconds
- Record type
- Special Marine Warning
- Affected area
- Chesapeake Bay and Rappahannock River, Virginia
- Issued
- July 9, 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: historical. It was issued 6 weeks ago; use the issuing agency's live warning service for current conditions in Chesapeake Bay and Rappahannock River, Virginia.
Alert Details
A Special Marine Warning (event code MAW) has been issued by the National Weather Service in Wakefield VA. The alert is effective from June 12 at 6:58 PM EDT until June 12 at 8:30 PM EDT.
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 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 6:58 PM EDT, a strong thunderstorm was located 14 nm northwest of Urbanna Inlet, moving east at 20 knots. Hazard includes wind gusts to 40 knots. Small craft could be damaged in briefly higher winds and suddenly higher waves.
Timeline
The warning is in effect from June 12, 2026 at 6:58 PM EDT and expires June 12, 2026 at 8:30 PM 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 (1,001 characters here).
Similar severity timing
Same severity (high) notices issued closest in time to July 9, 2026.
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