diff --git a/lib/_stream_readable.js b/lib/_stream_readable.js
index 9887bd774e1..702d87b549b 100644
--- a/lib/_stream_readable.js
+++ b/lib/_stream_readable.js
@@ -72,7 +72,7 @@ function ReadableState(options, stream) {
   this.highWaterMark = (hwm || hwm === 0) ? hwm : defaultHwm;
 
   // cast to ints.
-  this.highWaterMark = ~~this.highWaterMark;
+  this.highWaterMark = Math.floor(this.highWaterMark);
 
   // A linked list is used to store data chunks instead of an array because the
   // linked list can remove elements from the beginning faster than
diff --git a/lib/_stream_writable.js b/lib/_stream_writable.js
index a0a37fbb7a0..c3c2ce0710a 100644
--- a/lib/_stream_writable.js
+++ b/lib/_stream_writable.js
@@ -55,7 +55,7 @@ function WritableState(options, stream) {
   this.highWaterMark = (hwm || hwm === 0) ? hwm : defaultHwm;
 
   // cast to ints.
-  this.highWaterMark = ~~this.highWaterMark;
+  this.highWaterMark = Math.floor(this.highWaterMark);
 
   // drain event flag.
   this.needDrain = false;
diff --git a/test/parallel/test-streams-highwatermark.js b/test/parallel/test-streams-highwatermark.js
new file mode 100644
index 00000000000..aca2415bd8e
--- /dev/null
+++ b/test/parallel/test-streams-highwatermark.js
@@ -0,0 +1,18 @@
+'use strict';
+require('../common');
+
+// This test ensures that the stream implementation correctly handles values
+// for highWaterMark which exceed the range of signed 32 bit integers.
+
+const assert = require('assert');
+const stream = require('stream');
+
+// This number exceeds the range of 32 bit integer arithmetic but should still
+// be handled correctly.
+const ovfl = Number.MAX_SAFE_INTEGER;
+
+const readable = stream.Readable({ highWaterMark: ovfl });
+assert.strictEqual(readable._readableState.highWaterMark, ovfl);
+
+const writable = stream.Writable({ highWaterMark: ovfl });
+assert.strictEqual(writable._writableState.highWaterMark, ovfl);