October 23, 2026

Two items today: tidal flooding along the Chesapeake, and the first freeze of the season for parts of southeast Pennsylvania.

Water is still running high in the bay and its rivers as Josephine moves away. The Wakefield, Virginia office has coastal flood advisories until 2 AM Saturday for Dorchester, Wicomico, and Somerset counties on Maryland's lower Eastern Shore, and for the Virginia Northern Neck and Middle Peninsula, including Westmoreland, Northumberland, Richmond, Lancaster, Middlesex, Mathews, Gloucester, and York counties and James City County, Newport News, and Isle of Wight. The Baltimore and Washington office has advisories into this afternoon and evening for Anne Arundel, Calvert, St. Marys, and Charles counties in Maryland and King George County in Virginia. Expect up to a foot of water above ground in the most vulnerable low spots near the shoreline around high tide: parking lots, parks, waterfront lawns, and some roads.

The Sussex County beaches in Delaware also have a coastal flood advisory until midnight tonight.

A freeze watch covers Berks, Lehigh, upper Bucks, western Chester, western Montgomery, Lebanon, and Lancaster counties in Pennsylvania from late tonight through Saturday morning, with lows near 30 degrees.

The District of Columbia and West Virginia have no alerts in effect.

No power or water system disruptions are reported. West Virginia has a federal major disaster declaration from October 7 for earlier severe storms and flooding that includes Individual Assistance, the part of the program that pays households directly. If you had damage in a designated county and have not applied, check whether your county is listed and whether the window is still open at disasterassistance.gov.

No public health advisories found for the Capitol Region.

Food recalls posted by the Food and Drug Administration this week include Gelatelli coffee and vanilla gelato sold at Lidl for possible Listeria, Starfish Seafood cold smoked salmon for possible Listeria, and Family Farmstead raw mild cheddar cheese for possible E. coli. The full list, with lot codes, is at fda.gov/recalls.

Two sources we check could not be read this morning: the CDC Health Alert Network, for national health advisories, and AirNow, for air quality readings. Check emergency.cdc.gov/han and airnow.gov directly.

The Wakefield office expects dry weather and seasonable temperatures through the middle of next week, with tidal levels easing after tonight. The Weather Prediction Center's outlook has warmer than average temperatures building across the East next week.

A freeze night is a good reminder for anyone with a well pump house, an outdoor spigot, or a garden irrigation line: drain or insulate before the first hard freeze rather than after. Tonight may be that night in southeast Pennsylvania.