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Ohio Valley, Northeast Brace For Severe Weather

Radar image of the United States at 5:44 p.m. ET.
National Weather Service
Radar image of the United States at 5:44 p.m. ET.

Severe thunderstorms are moving east, this hour. As the National Weather Service's Storm Prediction Center says, parts of the Ohio Valley and interior southern New England can expect some wild weather this evening, including "widespread damaging winds."

Bloomberg reports that the line of storms may end up forming a "derecho." If you remember, that was a word many from Ohio through the mid-Atlantic had to learn last month, when the storm left millions without power.

As Mark explained, a derecho is "is a widespread, long-lived wind storm that is associated with a band of rapidly moving showers or thunderstorms" with wind gusts of at least 58 mph.

The National Weather Service says those most likely to affected today are:

Connecticut

Northern Delaware

Southeastern Indiana

Southwestern Massachusetts

Northern Maryland

Northern, central and western New Jersey

Southeastern New York

Central and southern Ohio

Much of Pennsylvania

Northern West Virginia

Weather.com, which is live blogging the severe weather, says New York City can expect strong storms around 7:30 p.m. ET.

Update at 8:27 p.m. ET. The Impact Begins:

Bloomberg says hundreds of flights have been canceled and almost 300,000 customers lost power in New York, Pennsylvania and Ohio by 7 p.m. local time. Reports of hail, wind and downed power lines and trees are coming in to the Storm Prediction Center. Along with its live blog, Weather.com is aggregating pictures and tweets on the storm and its damage with Storify.

Update at 11:45 p.m. ET. Menacing Clouds And A Union Deal:

Storm clouds loom over Times Square as Manhattan braced for heavy weather Thursday in New York.
John Minchillo / AP
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AP
Storm clouds loom over Times Square as Manhattan braced for heavy weather Thursday in New York.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo intervened in a weeks-long labor dispute between Consolidated Edison and its employees, The Associated Press reports, in anticipation of the storm.

"You don't want a storm hitting New York City without Con Ed being at full force," Cuomo said, according to the AP.

The unionized workers now have a tentative agreement in place with the company.

Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

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Eyder Peralta is NPR's East Africa correspondent based in Nairobi, Kenya.