Northeastern US Weather Watch

AP reports on the bad weather heading that way thanks to Hurricane Wilma. This storm will be big, maybe even bigger than the Perfect Storm.

An early nor'easter reinforced by distant Hurricane Wilma on Tuesday pounded beaches with 20-foot waves, knocked out power and spread rain across the Northeast, where many residents were still cleaning up from flooding earlier in the month.

"There's the potential for all sorts of problems all over the state," said Peter Judge, a spokesman for the Massachusetts emergency operations center in Framingham.

The National Weather Service posted coastal flood warnings from New Jersey to Connecticut and issued high wind warnings for parts of New England.

Twenty-foot waves eroded New Jersey beaches. Minor coastal flooding was reported on Cape Cod, with power outages there and in Connecticut. Dozens of flights were canceled at Boston's Logan Airport and a gust to 47 mph was recorded near Boston.

The storm was drawing moisture from the remnants of Hurricane Wilma, which was passing far offshore after battering Florida a day earlier.

"It's getting some energy from Wilma, but it's its own separate system," said Alan Dunham, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Taunton. The nor'easter is "going to be a good storm in it's own right."

Residents of coastal resort communities had spent Monday securing boats and anything else that wasn't tied down.

"We're taking everything off the deck and patio to make sure there's no flying objects," said John Mulligan of Manasquan, N.J.

In Connecticut, downed trees closed roads in Easton and Harwinton, and 4,000 Northeast Utilities customers were without power Tuesday.

The wind apparently blew over a tractor-trailer rig crossing a bridge at Bourne, Mass., forcing the closure of one of the only two routes onto Cape Cod, authorities said.

At Bay Head, N.J., in Ocean County, 20-foot waves scoured away sand, leaving a wooden walkway connecting the beach to a street dangling several feet above the water. Up and down the Jersey coast, high waves gnawed at protective dunes in front of million-dollar homes.

However, Neal Buccino, a spokesman for New Jersey's Office of Emergency Management, said he knew of no evacuations due to high water.

The storm also brought an early taste of winter.

Buccino said snow was falling at the higher elevations of northwest New Jersey, with 2 to 4 inches possible. The weather service issued a winter storm watch for Massachusetts' Berkshires, with the potential for up to 7 inches of wet, heavy snow that could bring down tree limbs and power lines. Snow also was likely in the mountains of Maine.

The storm system came on top of record rainfall earlier in the month.

Please be safe and do what you have to do.