October 23, 2026

Josephine is gone. The National Weather Service office in Boston says the storm has lost its tropical character and is passing well south of Nova Scotia, and high pressure is building in behind it. That means a dry, cool stretch through the weekend and most of next week.

The item for today is cold. A frost advisory is in effect from 2 AM to 9 AM Saturday for the shoreline of Connecticut, covering southern Fairfield, southern New Haven, southern Middlesex, and southern New London counties. A frost advisory means temperatures in the 30s with clear skies and light wind, cold enough to kill tender plants left outside. The Gray, Maine office expects lows in the 20s across most of Maine and New Hampshire tonight and Saturday night, with some teens in the north.

Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Vermont have no alerts in effect, though the Boston office expects widespread frost away from the immediate coast on these chilly mornings.

No power, water, or transportation disruptions are reported across the six states. New Hampshire has a federal major disaster declaration from October 7 for an earlier severe storm and flooding event. It covers public assistance for towns and agencies, not payments to households.

No public health advisories found for New England.

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 National Hurricane Center's Atlantic outlook, issued at 8 AM Eastern time, says no tropical cyclone is expected to form in the next seven days. Josephine has become a post-tropical storm and is moving away toward Atlantic Canada.

The Weather Prediction Center's outlook for Monday through Friday shows warmer than average temperatures spreading over the eastern half of the country and nothing widely hazardous. A dry, mild week after a hard frost is the easiest time of year to finish outdoor cold-weather work: drain and store garden hoses, shut off and drain outdoor faucets that are not frost-free, and clean gutters once the leaves are down.

On this date in 1878, a hurricane that came ashore in North Carolina the night before brought 120 mph winds to the summit of Mount Washington, according to a Weather Prediction Center reanalysis. A storm can stay strong far inland and far north of where it lands.