Special Marine Warning Issued for Tidal Potomac River Areas
This alert is no longer in effect.
NOAA issued it on May 21, 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 Baltimore MD/Washington DC has issued a Special Marine Warning for sections of the Tidal Potomac River due to gusty winds from a line of storms until 10:00 PM EDT.
Read this weather record in 30 seconds
- Record type
- Special Marine Warning
- Affected area
- Tidal Potomac River, Maryland
- Issued
- May 21, 2026
- Issuing authority
- NWS Baltimore MD/Washington DC
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 Tidal Potomac River, Maryland.
Alert Details
A Special Marine Warning has been issued by the National Weather Service in Sterling, Virginia, under NWS Baltimore MD/Washington DC. The alert is effective from 8:27 PM EDT on May 13, 2026, until 10:00 PM EDT on May 13, 2026. The alert type code is MA.W.
Affected Areas
The warning covers Tidal Potomac from Key Bridge to Indian Head MD and Tidal Potomac from Indian Head to Cobb Island MD. Impacted locations include Potomac Creek, Nanjemoy Creek, Smallwood State Park, Swan Point, Gunston Hall, Occoquan Bay, Popes Creek, Maryland Point, Port Tobacco River, Colonial Beach, Leesylvania State Park, Cobb Island, Mathias Point, U.S. 301 Nice Memorial Bridge, Mason Neck State Park, Woodrow Wilson Bridge, Wicomico River, Indian Head, Fort Hunt, and Brent Point.
What You Should Do
Move to safe harbor immediately as gusty winds and high waves are expected. Boaters in small craft could be thrown overboard by suddenly higher winds and waves capsizing their vessel.
Expected Conditions
A gust front associated with a line of storms was located along a line extending from 9 nm northwest of Key Bridge to 10 nm west of Alexandria to 14 nm northwest of Leesylvania State Park to 22 nm west of Quantico, moving southeast at 25 knots. Hazard includes wind gusts 34 knots or greater, indicated by radar.
Timeline
The warning is in effect from 8:27 PM EDT until 10:00 PM EDT on May 13, 2026.
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 (1,418 characters here).
Similar severity timing
Same severity (high) notices issued closest in time to May 21, 2026.
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