Special Marine Warning Issued for Pamlico Sound and NC Coastal Waters
This alert is no longer in effect.
NOAA issued it on May 16, 2026, 3 months 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 Newport/Morehead City has issued a Special Marine Warning for Pamlico Sound and adjacent waters until 8:30 AM EDT due to a severe thunderstorm capable of producing waterspouts.
Read this weather record in 30 seconds
- Record type
- Special Marine Warning
- Affected area
- Pamlico Sound, North Carolina
- Issued
- May 16, 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: historical. It was issued 3 months ago; use the issuing agency's live warning service for current conditions in Pamlico Sound, North Carolina.
Alert Details
Special Marine Warning issued by NWS Newport/Morehead City NC. Effective from 7:27 AM EDT to 8:30 AM EDT on May 9, 2026.
Affected Areas
Pamlico Sound; S of Cape Hatteras NC to Ocracoke Inlet NC out to 20 NM; S of Ocracoke Inlet NC to Cape Lookout NC out to 20 NM.
What You Should Do
Seek safe harbor immediately. Thunderstorms can produce sudden waterspouts. Waterspouts can easily overturn boats and create locally hazardous seas.
Expected Conditions
Severe thunderstorm capable of producing waterspouts located near Ocracoke or Ocracoke Inlet, moving north at 5 knots. Hazard includes waterspouts and wind gusts 34 knots or greater.
Timeline
Alert effective May 9, 2026 at 7:27 AM EDT and expires at 8:30 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 (747 characters here).
Similar severity timing
Same severity (high) notices issued closest in time to May 16, 2026.
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