East Coast braces for powerful storm that will bring strong gusts and pouring rain

A huge storm system bringing heavy rain, high winds, and severe thunderstorms to the East Coast will derail weekend plans in Eastern U.S. cities.

On Saturday, the system will form in the Gulf of Mexico and bring rain and wind to the Eastern Seaboard through Monday.

Florida has flood and wind alerts. Saturday morning's Weather Channel bulletin on X predicted a few tornadoes due to extreme weather.

The state's major power utility, Florida Power & Light Co., responded to storm-related outages.

“We are safely and quickly responding to outages caused by severe weather impacting parts of Florida, including heavy rain and wind gusts near tropical-storm-force strength,” the company said in a post on X, telling people to stay away from downed power lines and damaged electrical equipment.

The storm will intensify up the East Coast Sunday. The mid-Atlantic coast will see heavy rain and severe winds.

The NWS issued wind advisories for Manhattan, the Bronx, Staten Island, southern Westchester, and most of interior southern Connecticut.