Good morning, it’s Friday. Thankfully.
I have to admit, though, it’s kind of hard to get excited about the weekend when a pretty significant storm is barreling in your direction. Even if we are spared the worst of it, the next few days are shaping up to be pretty dismal – gray, wet, and windy. Definitely nothing to cheer about.
You’ve probably heard by now that a very powerful and slow moving nor’easter will be battering the East Coast today through Sunday, bringing heavy rain, potentially damaging wind gusts of 4o to 60 mph and even more in parts of New England, and severe coastal flooding.
The storm is coinciding with the Harvest Moon high tides, which means seas will be building to 15-20 feet, exacerbating coastal erosion in some fragile areas from the mid-Atlantic to Maine.
It looks right now like Eastern Massachusetts and Cape Cod are really going to get hit hard, with up to seven inches of rain. Here in the Capital Region, we’re going to get mostly residuals, but it’s still going to be not lovely from a weather perspective.
The trouble is that we don’t really know what’s going to happen here, because nor’easters are notoriously difficult to predict. Just the slightest shift in the storm track can cause dramatic shifts in the weather and areas of impact. We’re talking just a few dozen miles of a movement to the east or west making a difference between complete blizzard conditions (in the winter, that is) and clear skies.
What is a nor’easter, anyway? Well, as the name suggests, it’s a large, non-tropical storm that occurs along the East Coast, propelled by strong winds that blow in, well, the northeast. These storms can occur at any time during the year, but tend to be strongest from September through April.
The warm air over the ocean water, which holds onto its heat, thanks to the Golf Stream, mixing with cold air that blows in over the land from the Arctic is what generally fuels these storms and gives them their ferocious power. Nor’easters can be deadly and devastating, and, in some cases, historic.
Nor’easters tend to be more of a winter thing, so this fall occurrence is fairly unusual and will be more like a hurricane than a blizzard.
I’m sure it won’t surprise you to learn that climate change is having an impact on nor’easters, making them more intense – a 17 percent increase, according to one study released in 2025 – though perhaps not more frequent.
This particular storm is going to make itself felt largely to the south and east of us here in the Capital Region. In the Albany area, we’ll see partly cloudy skies today, with the sun potentially making an appearance from time to time, and temperatures topping out in the low 70s. Things will then take a turn for the worse, with clouds and rain developing later in the day on Saturday, and more clouds and showers on Sunday. Temperatures will struggle to break into the mid-60s on both days.
In the headlines…
Republican senators are expressing concern and dismay over Trump’s lavish welcome of Chinese President Xi Jinping to a two-day summit in Washington after it was revealed earlier this month that Iran used Chinese satellite imagery to target U.S. troops in Jordan.
A tech-heavy guest list, the fashion choices of those on it, who sat where and what was on the menu marked the softer — often and glitzier — details of diplomacy as Trump threw a Thursday night state dinner honoring China’s leader Xi Jinping.
At the White House gate, a throng of Chinese journalists was being admitted onto the grounds of the Executive Mansion to cover Xi’s visit. On the street, several American journalists were blocked from entering the White House on the orders of President Trump.
A new ad flashes images of President Trump set to a striking soundtrack: A song titled “Love Me.” Even more striking may be the disclaimer: “Paid for by the U.S. government.”
James Copenhaver, one of three campaign rally attendees shot in 2024 during an assassination attempt on then candidate Trump, has died in Pittsburgh, his lawyer said Thursday. He was 76.
The Senate narrowly rejected an effort to direct President Trump to end the war in Iran unless he wins authorization for it, defeating a measure aimed at rebuking his handling of a conflict he has continued to wage despite repeated votes by Congress to halt it.
The resolution, which passed the House over the summer, failed 50 to 49, with four Republicans — Senators Susan Collins of Maine, Rand Paul of Kentucky, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Thom Tillis of North Carolina — joining Democrats in support.
New Jersey Gov. Mikie Sherrill asked her lieutenant governor, Dale Caldwell, to resign by today, following an investigation finding he made female members of his staff uncomfortable, including a sexual harassment complaint that was substantiated by investigators.
A 61-page report details how Caldwell, 66, used his taxpayer-funded position to score event tickets for his romantic conquests, pull strings to try to get his secret girlfriend a cushy state promotion, and task his own aides with finding him a “first lady.”
Gov. Kathy Hochul said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu damaged his credibility when he accused New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani of sympathizing with Hamas terrorists.
Netanyahu tore into Mamdani during a Thursday address to the UN — claiming “Jews no longer feel safe” in New York City with the mayor in City Hall.
Directly addressing the protesters who were outside the building, Netanyahu demanded to know where they had been when Iranian security forces killed thousands of people demonstrating against the regime in Tehran in January.
In response, Mamdani accused the prime minister of using his U.N. speech “to repeat baseless lies meant to sanitize his genocide of Palestinians.”
Hochul and AG Tish James announced a new lawsuit against Polymarket, a prediction market company that lets users purchase “event contracts” to potentially earn money from outcomes ranging from sports games to pop culture to political elections.
Hochul warned residents in low-lying areas of New York City and Long Island to prepare for flooding as a powerful storm is set to bring heavy rain and strong winds over the weekend.
Nearly 200,000 people paid to care for disabled loved ones through Hochul’s $11 billion Medicaid-funded homecare program will hold a vote on whether to unionize — a move that could mean higher costs for taxpayers.
Approximately 20 terminally ill patients have chosen to end their lives under New York’s controversial new assisted suicide law — in just one month since the state program went into effect, according to an expert.
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is dipping her toe in the 2028 political waters as she launches an upstate New York voter outreach tour on DSA-friendly turf.
Roughly 100 pro-Palestinian demonstrators — including several politicians close to Mayor Mamdani — were arrested in Manhattan this afternoon while protesting Netanyahu’s appearance at the United Nations.
Among those taken into custody was Democratic Socialists of America member and Mamdani-backed House hopeful Darializa Avila-Chevalier, who smiled and chanted, “Free Palestine” as she was loaded onto an NYPD bus.
“I refuse to allow a war criminal to roam the streets of our city unchallenged,” Avila Chevalier said in a statement. “I refuse to play host to a man who has overseen the slaughter or injury of more than 64,000 children in Gaza with American taxpayer dollars.”
Left-leaning Democrats with ties to Mamdani are hosting a big Manhattan fundraiser for Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed on Oct. 5.
Mamdani will be in the guest seat next week for a special Big Apple broadcast of ABC’s “Jimmy Kimmel Live!,” the network announced.
Mamdani advised New Yorkers to take extra precautions this weekend as an approaching nor’easter threatens to inundate New York City with heavy rain and wind gusts.
The mayor, with a video filmed at the Metropolitan Opera House, joined the Met in announcing a program to distribute free tickets
The City Council is taking at artificial intelligence — introducing a slate of bills Friday aimed at regulating AI companies doing business in the Big Apple, including by mandating “kill switches” and offering cash rewards for whistleblowers.
The City Council dropped a plan to automatically enroll New Yorkers in city benefits Thursday — instead passing a drastically pared-down bill over concerns it would be an invasion of immigrants’ privacy.
The City Council released a new plan to build more than 5,000 apartments on Staten Island’s North Shore — with an eye toward the borough’s closest neighbor, New Jersey.
One of 19 professors laid off by the New School in June as part of a reorganization to address its financial difficulties is suing the university, arguing that his tenure and accomplishments should have protected him.
Former Mayor Rudy Giuliani denied accusations that he hid information about dangerous airborne toxins lingering in Lower Manhattan in the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks — telling The NY Post his administration followed federal guidance.
A man who died in a Queens courthouse last week died by suicide, the city’s medical examiner said Thursday.
Residents of a Bronx apartment building are still displaced and dealing with the aftermath of a fatal fire that tore through the building, leaving one of their neighbors dead and another with both legs broken after he jumped out a fourth-floor window.
Labor and construction industry groups lashed out at Democratic Rep. Josh Riley and pushed back against his claims that two bills he pitched would bring down energy costs.
A hearing officer failed to back up the disciplinary charges the Niskayuna Town Board used to fire former systems administrator Seth Goldstein after he was blamed for the town’s secret recording of two years’ worth of phone calls, an appeals court ruled Thursday.
In the aftermath of the two tornadoes that hit Wilton on Aug. 27, town Supervisor Toni Sturm said officials are seeking to do better in the event of another catastrophic weather event.
An Albany police officer faces six years in state prison after he pleaded guilty Thursday to felony drug possession to resolve a case that accused him of selling cocaine while off duty.
Malta Gardens is on the market, and residents of the manufactured-home park are organizing to buy it.
St. Peter’s Health Partners is suing the leaders of a Schenectady cardiology practice at the center of its widening and ongoing legal battle with Ellis Medicine following the collapse of merger talks between the two healthcare organizations this summer.
The Albany High School jazz band is going to open for a Grammy Award-winning bluegrass band at the Egg on Saturday.
Attorneys for Edward A. Leon, accused of setting a 2013 Schenectady fire that killed a father and three children, are asking a judge to dismiss his indictment because they allege First Assistant U.S. Attorney John A. Sarcone III has been serving unlawfully.
Photo credit: George Fazio.
