Hurricane Season 2012 Update October 26: Tropical Cyclone Sandy

 

(Projected Path Of Sandy)

As of 3:00am Tropical Cyclone Sandy has a minimum central pressure, measured by hurricane reconnaissance, at 968 millibars with maximum sustained winds of 85 miles per hour, gusting to 115 miles per hour making it a category 1 hurricane on the Saffir-Simpson Scale. Sandy is centered approximately 200 miles to the east of Miami, FL currently battering the islands of the Bahamas with hurricane conditions. Its forward movement is to the NNW at 12 miles per hour. Tropical storm forced winds extend approximately 200 miles out from the center of circulation reaching all the way to Florida's east coast. The projected path of Sandy will continue its movement to the NNW until about Friday evening, coming within 100 miles to 150 miles east of Florida. During this time, the east coast of Florida will experience tropical storm forced wind gusts and heavy rain bands associated with Hurricane Sandy to the east. From here, Sandy will begin to turn more to the north, then north east by early Saturday morning. As it does so, its circulation will begin to expand in diameter with bands of heavy rain and tropical storm forced winds reaching eastern North Carolina by Sunday morning. By Sunday evening Sandy will begin to turn back to the north, then north west again about 200 miles east of Cape Hatteras. During this time, as Sandy turns more westerly towards land it will begin to join forces with a frontal system that will be moving east toward the coast. From Sunday evening through Monday, this frontal system will become stationary, and then begin to literally absorb a vast amount of tropical moisture associated with Sandy in a virtual tug of war between systems.This will form a large swath of very heavy rain covering over the Midatlantic and southern New England. Because many trees have begun to lose their leaves, storm drains and sewers will become blocked by these fallen leaves. This will lead to urban flash flooding especially in those flood prone areas. As Sandy gets absorbed by this frontal system it will undergo a metamorphosis, losing its tropical characteristics and becoming more of a larger hybrid type of storm with tropical storm forced  winds extending out an extraordinary 400 to 500 miles in diameter with embedded hurricane forced wind gusts. This hybrid storm is expected to make landfall somewhere over in the Midatlantic from the Delmarva Peninsula and the Jersey Shore on Monday with sustained winds up and over 70 miles per hour. This will have dire repercussions for coastal communities from Cape Hatteras to the Jersey Shore, to Long Island, to Cape Cod as the ingredients for major coastal inundations are becoming apparent. These ingredients include: strong easterly winds up to tropical storm force, storm surge associated with Sandy, higher than normal tides expected during Monday's full moon, as well as heavy rain; the combination of these factors could potentially, at worst, rearrange coast lines carving out new inlets. This storm will also have a wintery side as cold air gets dragged into the rear flank of the storm. This could produce a heavy wet snowfall over the higher elevations of the Appalachians in the Virginas and extreme eastern North Carolina. Wide spread power outages that will last for several days can be expected for millions of residents from North Carolina to Long Island due to the nature of this storm. This storm could wind up totaling up and over $1 Billion when its all said and done, having both a big economic and human toll. Like Hurricane Irene last year evacuation orders will likely be in effect for low lying zones of New York City making this the second time in history the city has issued evacuation orders due to weather. This storm will be nothing to sneeze at as tidal flooding could surpass what was experienced with Irene last year and Hurricane Floyd in 1999.