Originally the oriental way of referring direction is East-West generally comes first. While in the west North-South comes first.
After the Meiji Era, Japanese is using the western way to refer to direction. But you would still find the “old way” of referring direction around especially if the term predates the Meiji Era.
Today, 東北 mostly refer to a region in Japan. But when you watch news telling the direction of wind and so on, they mostly use 北東。
Sorry, if there’s grammar mistakes. English is not my first language.