Tornado Warning at JFK as Nor'easter Hammers the Northeast With Hail and Flooding

A tornado warning at one of America's busiest airports. Golf-ball-sized hail in New Jersey. Streets under water in Queens. A powerful nor'easter turned an ordinary November Thursday into one of the strangest weather days the Northeast has seen in years, and the storm was still pushing up the coast on Friday morning.

The National Weather Service put parts of Queens under a tornado warning on Thursday afternoon after radar picked up rotation in a storm near Rockaway Beach. The warning, issued at 1:14 p.m. ET, covered John F. Kennedy International Airport and southwestern Nassau County until 2 p.m. LaGuardia Airport was under a warning as well. Both airports held planes on the ground while the storms passed, and parts of the JFK Expressway closed as water piled up on the roadway.

The warnings were triggered by rotation spotted on radar. The Weather Service confirmed a tornado in New Castle County, Delaware, and said survey teams would go out on Friday to check damage reports in New Jersey, where a radar-confirmed tornado was reported in the southern part of the state. The Mount Holly, New Jersey, weather office issued three tornado warnings on Thursday, the second-highest number it has ever issued on a single November day.

The hail may be what people remember longest. More than 39 hail reports came in from across the region. Burlington Township, New Jersey, reported stones 1.75 inches across, the largest of the outbreak. Quarter-sized hail fell in other parts of the state, and video from Breezy Point and Rockaway Beach in Queens showed hail hammering streets and rooftops as the storm rolled through.

Rain did the most damage. JFK recorded just over 3.32 inches of rain on Thursday, making it the airport's second-wettest November day on record. Central Park picked up more than 1.6 inches. A flash flood warning covered southern Queens through 6:15 p.m., and in Brooklyn, clogged drains left intersections under water. Across the region, close to 50 storm reports came in from Delaware to New York.

The storm is a nor'easter, a low-pressure system that strengthens as it moves up the East Coast, pulling warm, humid air off the Atlantic into cold air over land. That mix is what gave Thursday's thunderstorms their spin. November tornadoes are rare in the Northeast, and a warning at JFK is rarer still.

Forecasters say the rain will keep coming in waves through Friday as the low tracks north, roughly parallel to the coast, with its center passing near Long Island. The storm is expected to move offshore near Cape Cod before heading toward Canada. Behind it, much colder air pours in, and the higher ground of upstate New York and northern New England is in line for the season's first significant snow.

For travelers, the mess is not over. JFK, LaGuardia, Newark and Boston Logan all felt the storm on Thursday, with ground stops and delays as the worst of it passed through. Anyone flying out of the Northeast on Friday should check with their airline before heading to the airport.

The Weather Service's survey teams will be out Friday in New Jersey and Delaware, and their findings will settle how many tornadoes actually touched down. Until then, Thursday stands as a reminder that the Northeast's storm season does not end with summer. A November nor'easter can still bring a little bit of everything, sometimes all in the same afternoon.