Late season Hurricane Sandy hit Jamaica today with 80 mph winds and heavy rain. After being predicted to move north and east out to sea, the models have all shifted and now predict a potential “Perfect Storm” to hit the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast US and Canadian Maritimes early next week.
The “Perfect Storm” characterization is apt for a number of reasons - it’s a very large storm in terms of size and intensity, the waters in the area are 5°F warmer than average, the trees still have their leaves on them so winds and snow in higher elevations could cause them to topple, and finally it coincides with the full moon, which means tides will be at their highest, and coastal flooding is likely.
These things are tough to predict and it could still spin out to sea, but it is more likely than not to hit the coast.
I’d gas up the generators if I lived in D.C. or north.
The Washington Post is saying that the odds of landfall have risen. Weather blogger Brendan Loy also thinks this is a serious threat, and he points out that the storm may also dump heavy snow along its back side, over the Appalachians. Loy has an interesting discussion of the possible consequences for the election of heavy snow and widespread power outages in the many swing states that are going to be in Sandy’s path.
(If you haven’t heard of him, Loy accurately interpreted the approach of Hurricane Katrina and its consequences for New Orleans and the Gulf Coast several days before landfall. He has a sharp track record, and he’s not a needless alarmist).
Holy cow. Last year’s Halloween storm left us without power for almost 10 days and my campus was closed for a week. Halloween was cancelled! That was in CT.
Wait, there was a storm last halloween? I’m in RI and I don’t even remember that at all. But I do remember Irene hitting the day after moving here :smack:.
If you’re in the path of this one, that’ll be the least of your worries.
Other than pulling down some cold air down from Canada, you won’t be affected at all.
Forecasters expected the mountains of eastern Cuba to knock Sandy down to a tropical storm today, but it stayed intact and actually strengthened to a Cat 2 today, which absolutely nobody predicted.
From the maps, it looks like Erie and Ontario could be affected (if it makes landfall at all), but not Michigan, Huron and Superior. I’m hunkering down on the western shore of The Mich. As long as we don’t get 10 ft waves on top of a 10 ft seche, I’m OK.
I reminded of years ago when our company was bringing in job candidates. We had this young lady from up north who knew everthing about everything. Sounded good on paper but damn was she obnoxious. She even refused to shake any of the technicians hands and acted like they weren’t even there!
Anyway, at one point she makes fun of all us stupid southerners and how hurricanes are no big deal but on the OTOH a noreaster is a REAL storm donchaknow. My boss, a transplanted yankee, pointed out that he had been in BOTH kind of storms and a hurricance was no laughing matter. That factoid didn’t even slow her down on her hurricane rant.
But the best part was a line from one of our techs (also a transplant) who was tired of her shit. He said “its one thing to look out your kitchen window and see six feet of snow. Its another to look out and see six feet of water”
That finally shut her up.
Story over. Yeah, noreasters suck too! Good luck up there guys and gals and be safe!
I don’t remember one either. We don’t get hit hard here. Sometime in the late 90s there was a hurricane reported on the way. It turned out to be a warm breeze. But don’t try to find bread, milk, or toilet paper at the grocery store if there’s a report of bad weather. They’ll never forget the blizzard of 78 here.
ETA: Now I’m recalling a storm that passed over LI last year and skipped us entirely. Not a hurricane though. Maybe that was it.
Huge snow fall and with the leaves on the trees still they collapsed under the weight. People were out of power for over a week and half. It was awful. I had faculty showering at shelters before coming in for class.
I am in the Philly burbs. Irene didn’t do a lot of damage to our house or neighborhood, but it really was a scary storm. We live in a hilly suburb surrounded by mature trees. Our house is newer with large windows in every single room. The wind whipping around and swaying trees was freaking us out. We panicked a little during the height of the storm and thought we might want to leave and go to my in-laws place. We ended up staying, we just took us and all the pets down to the basement and holed up there.
We were without power for only 12 hours, we had no flooding issues. My friend a town away had massive flooding in her just remodeled basement. IIRC, New England was much harder hit than we were.
This time I plan on being prepared and having a bag packed and ready to go with all the stuff we might need. My panic last time was not so much about what I and my husband needed, but gathering vaccination records and supplies for the animals.
The last October snowfall for us ended up just being an inconvenience, no damage. I was house-sitting for a friend and took lots of pictures of her dog rolling around in the snow.
I live a couple of blocks from the beach in NJ. We’ve dodged some bullets recently. The big hurricane that wasn’t last year and the derecho this summer. Our lights flickered but never went out for more than 30 seconds in either case. Just down the street people were w/o power for a few days.
We rode out the hurricane at home and the only time of concern was when at 2:00 am the news reported a tornado a couple of miles away. I’ve seen worse nor’easters. The derecho was much scarier. I’d hate to encounter a tornado at night after seeing winds around “only” 75 mph. Creepy.
I am trying not to get too discouraged ahead of the storm, but I know that if it comes within sneezing distance of the DC area, I’ll probably be without power for a week.
Irene dropped a tree on the house and power lines and we had no power for 6 days. BGE had a big meeting with our community association and promised to trim trees and look into “smart meters” so they’d know who still needed repairs. We never saw them.
Then the derecho took down a bunch of neighborhood trees and left us without power for 7 days. BGE basically told us that’s life, and we should get generators. Assholes. Last I heard, the county and state were looking into BGE’s response, because they did a seriously piss-poor job organizing the repair efforts.
I’ll be trying to eat as much freezer food as possible this weekend, but if the power’s out more than a couple of days I’ll have to start begging friends for extra fridge/freezer space if their power’s on.
Candles and flashlights are ready. Wine and board games are ready. I’ve got water, easy-to-eat food, and all my prescriptions refilled. Car’s full of gas, I have cash on hand, and I’m picking up ice for coolers on the way home so I can keep them in the second freezer till they’re needed. At least it’s a reasonable temperature outside and we shouldn’t need to worry about heating.
Keeping my fingers crossed that it blows out to sea… but I’m not optimistic.
