Hurricane Sandy Threatens To Slam Northeast U.S. Monday-Tuesday 29th-30th

M.T. Cranium

Every model is trending towards a landfall in New Jersey although the plausible zone is probably Ocean City MD to Cape Cod at this point. I have posted a guess of 30-50 miles south of Asbury Park NJ which is probably about the worst case scenario for New York City metro. This is northeast of the Euro which I believe may have a bias west due to what appears to be 10-15 mbs overdeepening. GEM is sort of the mirror image of that error set but does jog to my landfall site near end of approach. GFS runs a bit north of my track. NAM is quickly joining the credible group now that we're into comfortable grids and time scales (for it). UK is riding middle of the road.

Landfall on that track would be about 03z Tuesday which is 11 p.m. Monday in local (Eastern) daylight saving time (which we are still on next week).

Some indications of acceleration have been factored into my forecast as one might infer 06z from model runs. The Euro landfall is further south near Delaware Bay and would therefore be earlier (mid-afternoon Monday).

U.S. media have sold this to the public as a possible mega-storm stay close and get the final word sort of a deal. What else can they do really? Emergency planning is ready to hit the ground running today with good weather for the rest of daylight (once the sun rises) and the rain set to arrive Sunday morning, stronger winds Sunday night.

Could see some horrendous impacts if the models are right. There is much speculation of a "billion dollar storm" which sounds catastrophic but which amounts to let's say 1,000 write-off homes (at $1 million value) or more likely something like 300 write-off homes, 200 write-off businesses and 10,000 cases of more limited damage. In a region with a population similar to Germany, this is not such a huge number as it first sounds. Katrina IIRC was many billions of dollars. This could also go up that high in a worst case scenario. Flood impacts are likely to be 2 or 3 times wind impacts in dollar and human casualty terms.

Of course with this much lead time and publicity, not one person needs to perish but there is bound to be a toll, hoping it is kept below a hundred for sure. These tolls sometimes include cases of natural mortality such as heart attacks so the actual direct risks would be storm surge drownings, river flood drownings, tree-fall injuries to vehicle occupants, home dwellers and then such incidents as clean-up falls (from tree branches, roofs).

One of my earliest childhood memory is a great oak that fell in the Jan 31 1953 gale in a park (in the west Midlands of UK) and kids climbing on that. This storm may have about the same power as the 1953 storm (as I'm sure many readers know, it sank a ferry coming into Larne and went on to devastate the sea defenses of Holland and parts of East Anglia.)

maquiladora

Recon has found the pressure has dropped to 961mb.
It was 967mb on the last pass about an hour ago.

Deep Easterly

Not sure if this satellite view has been posted up already but covers the last 7 days for the North American region, a nice way to track the storm's progress. Will try to find a way to download the whole video once the storm has passed and put up on youtube just to keep for the archives. Also, a warning that this animation is heavy on bandwidth so will take a while to load.

http://www.ssec.wisc.edu/data/us_comp/movie-large.php

maquiladora

Officially down to 960 now and recon just found 957.

The 06Z GFS doesn't get Sandy down to 958 until 45 hours into the run.

fits

freakin hell! They've found hurricane force winds again too. Will be interesting to watch this one develop thats for sure.

maquiladora

fits wrote: »

freakin hell! They've found hurricane force winds again too. Will be interesting to watch this one develop thats for sure.

They did forecast it to regain hurricane strength in 2 days, but they've had up upgrade it now earlier. Intensity is always the hardest thing to forecast.

Spindle

maquiladora wrote: »

Officially down to 960 now and recon just found 957.

The 06Z GFS doesn't get Sandy down to 958 until 45 hours into the run.

How does this fair to the Euro model. I know it has a lower pressure than the other models. Is it on to something?

maquiladora

Spindle wrote: »

How does this fair to the Euro model. I know it has a lower pressure than the other models. Is it on to something?

Latest recon just found 963mb. Yeah it seems to be pretty close to the ECMWF at the moment.

M.T. Cranium

Seems that the storm has passed the zone of maximum dry air entrainment from Florida yesterday afternoon, at one point it was only looking like a circulation on visible imagery. This is probably more of a restoration to some base line intensity and the trend may now stabilize with perhaps a continuing 5-mb deficit from modelling, although I am watching like a hawk for any signs of rapid acceleration because who knows how much margin of error is built into the phasing process of this apparent singularity type event.

The 1938 hurricane accelerated rapidly just beyond this point (although coming in from the southeast as it originated off Cape Verde). That one being 21 September, this late season full-range thermal contrast at phasing was not in play, and so can't be used too directly for comparison.

Gut feeling is that GEM has best handle on process, take it minus 5 mbs and tweak it west through first 48h (from 00z model run). Implies a track something like 32N74W at 00z Sun to 37N71W 00z Mon to 40N 74W 00z Tues, on its way past NYC to a landfall 03z n/c NJ. Intensity may reach cat-2 at some point and there is a risk of an explosive "hybrid cat-4" sort of 940 mb outcome south of New York City by Monday night.

A sobering thought is that this storm has only underperformed for 10% of its life cycle relative to forecasters' consensus (from model guidance) and has overperformed about 30% of time, on track 60%. So it's a game one (keep thinking of it as a boy hurricane because I've only ever known males with the name Sandy, guess it's short form of Sandra, but perhaps the better name for it would be She-It.)

maquiladora

NWS in New Jersey have released a 12 page briefing on Sandy.

http://www.erh.noaa.gov/phi/briefing/packages/current_briefing.pdf

Sponge Bob

http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/text/refresh/MIATCDAT3+shtml/271504.shtml?

AIR FORCE AIRCRAFT ALSO
REPORTED A MINIMUM PRESSURE OF AROUND 956 MB FROM A DROPSONDE
AROUND 1200 UTC...BUT THE PRESSURE IS UP A COUPLE OF MILLIBARS ON
THE LATEST FIX. BASED ON THE AIRCRAFT DATA...THE INTENSITY WAS
INCREASED

Increased to 958.

maquiladora

12Z GFS initializes Sandy at 972mb.

ECM has been getting it right at the start for the past few runs. Thats the one to watch this evening.

rc28

Jaysus, hi-res GFS 12z has it at 936mb just before landfall.
https://twitter.com/RyanMaue/status/262220010062221313/photo/1

For people interested, the following US weather forum seems quite good:http://www.americanwx.com/bb/index.php/forum/20-weather-forecasting-and-discussion/
There are also regional threads such as the NYC one: http://www.americanwx.com/bb/index.php/topic/37431-hurricane-sandy-thread-2/page__st__665

Green Diesel

The media are warning people for the potential of this storm alright. The americans I know here are quite complacent though, kind of a boy cried wolf attitude after storms like Irene were not as bad as first forecast. I'd probably have the same attitde if it wasn't for reading this thread, hearing about record low pressure forecasts, and extreme winds.

Anyway, I filled the rental with gas as a precaution

*Heads for the hills*

Iancar29

Shall be video calling my uncle later on to see whats happening so far over there, he lives about 25 mins west of Newark Airport in a wooded area..:/

weathermaiden

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Iancar29

Sounds like NWS won't be issuing Hurricane advisories for the NE Coast. If this is true, it's not a great idea. Mariners will get it but coastal residents may not, and Hurricane advisories trigger some evacs & EMA decisions. http://t.co/MNbAbbxd


Serious storm cause for a serious setup...

M.T. Cranium

Ian, the weather is nice and quiet today in NJ and NYC, they are in what is left of the warm sector of the low that went up into Hudson Bay, about 20C.

The latest GFS run is a shocker, takes a full hurricane to the NJ coast on Monday night. If it verified it would be a mega-disaster for sure.

The warning system may get a bit scrambled up by those decisions but as you know, almost all TV news in the U.S. is pretty much of a local station interaction with network news and cable news such as Fox and CNN.

Most of these sources are already fully engaged in warning the public about the extraordinary potential of this storm especially on the storm surge front.

State governor (NJ) Chris Christie has ordered mandatory evacuations of coastal and low-lying areas already. I know the area where your uncle lives, sounds like West Orange possibly ?? -- they should be okay if not exposed to strong east winds because they're up above a flood plain there. I have relatives not far away from there but closer to the Raritan River that empties into New York Harbour from the west. That river floods big-time in almost every tropical event so God only knows what it will do with a storm surge added into the mixture. Those relatives put me on the back burner some time ago, so I shall abandon them to their fates (means I lost their number).

This is actually starting to look like a half-Katrina sort of outcome with full rescue mode by late Tuesday. I hope for the best but fear for the worst after seeing the GFS and GEM output from 12z. It's basically a Muhammad Ali hook to the jaw for Jersey.

Meanwhile I've heard reports that NYC mayor Bloomberg is virtually blowing this storm off after taking flak on the Irene non-surge (Irene did lots of damage inland with flooding). Hopefully the NY state governor will overrule that attitude which could end up being a bad call.

Iancar29

I just hope my friend's too that were are due to fly over wont loose ALL there flight costs if its cancelled!

Uncle lives near a town called Long Hill MT?... in a wildlife reserve area... they have huge trees all around him but none exactly danger close to the house itself.

Any ideas of if and when NYC will delcare a SOE ?.... and what will happen then transport wise?

i seen a chart of 60 ft waves according to the GFS?.... craziness!!

Deep Easterly

UKMO 12z taking same path as GFS but has central pressure around 964 hPa before landfall. (Hard to make out though on chart)



Current visible loop. Classy looking system: http://www.aviationweather.gov/adds/satellite/displaySat.php?region=CLT&isingle=multiple&itype=vis

up for anything

M.T. Cranium wrote: »

Meanwhile I've heard reports that NYC mayor Bloomberg is virtually blowing this storm off after taking flak on the Irene non-surge (Irene did lots of damage inland with flooding). Hopefully the NY state governor will overrule that attitude which could end up being a bad call.

Would Obama not be being briefed on all of this and rap the Mayor's knuckles if he thinks he's not taking it seriously enough?

PJD

Story has now reached rte web page.

jo06555

Sorry for my ignorance but I find this very interesting can someone put into simple words how bad this can get ??? I'm hearing if this storm fuses with arctic weather it could be mega storm or something not seen before how true is this and sorry again as I say I'm interested in it all but I don't have a clue with charts send the likes

Tenger

up for anything wrote: »

Would Obama not be being briefed on all of this and rap the Mayor's knuckles if he thinks he's not taking it seriously enough?

No. The USA is a federal nation.

Thus NY state (as well as NJ, Nth Carolina, Maryland etc) make their own preparations. In some situations the Governor can request federal assistance. In this case the President can authorise FEMA to assist the state in question.

I'm not sure what the relationship between the Mayor of NYC and the governor of NY State is. I would assume the governor can instigate state wide SoE prep even if individual cities don't have their own stuff ready.

up for anything

Tenger wrote: »

No. The USA is a federal nation.

Thus NY state (as well as NJ, Nth Carolina, Maryland etc) make their own preparations. In some situations the Governor can request federal assistance. In this case the President can authorise FEMA to assist the state in question.

I'm not sure what the relationship between the Mayor of NYC and the governor of NY State is. I would assume the governor can instigate state wide SoE prep even if individual cities don't have their own stuff ready.

So there is no one person who is authorised to step in and take charge if there are several State emergencies?

Rougies

jo06555 wrote: »

Sorry for my ignorance but I find this very interesting can someone put into simple words how bad this can get ??? I'm hearing if this storm fuses with arctic weather it could be mega storm or something not seen before how true is this and sorry again as I say I'm interested in it all but I don't have a clue with charts send the likes

Here's a good layman-friendly article posted by an American meteorologist that describes the situation quite well I think.

https://www.facebook.com/WHIOJamieSimpson/posts/484368551584652

Tenger

jo06555 wrote: »

Sorry for my ignorance but I find this very interesting can someone put into simple words how bad this can get ??? I'm hearing if this storm fuses with arctic weather it could be mega storm or something not seen before how true is this and sorry again as I say I'm interested in it all but I don't have a clue with charts send the likes

Well you have a hurricane heading towards the US coast (while it may be technically downgraded, for the people on the ground it is a 'hurricane')......you then have a storm front heading towards the same area from the inland USA bringing snowfall. Combine that with an high pressure system moving down from the arctic this could mean that the storm doesn't move through very quickly. The slower a storm moves the more damage it causes.

It is a full moon at the moment so the tide is high. Combine this with the storm surge (high waves coming to shore ahead of the 'hurricane'), the amount of leaves on the ground and the expected rainfall........you get possibility of major flooding.

In 1938 a hurricane caused 12.8 ft flooding, this is expected to cause up to 15ft.

This is a serious weather event. The 'Perfect Storm' of 1991 was a similar event but I don't think it actually hit the USA. (anyone?)

up for anything wrote: »

So there is no one person who is authorised to step in and take charge if there are several State emergencies?

Well the individual states have to ask for federal assistance. I assume FEMA would co-ordinate a multi state situation. But remember that all USA states have their own emergency agencies and their own National Guard.

Su Campu

Su Campu wrote: »

Container ship Sea Land Mercury (WKAW) just off the east Florida coast was reporting 60 kt winds and 9 metre waves at 00Z.

WKAW 27003 99287 70796 41596 80160 10230 20201 49985 52025 78162 889// 22284 00280 21018 301// 41416 5//// 6//// 80210 ICE /////=

It's only just set sail from Miami to Norfolk, Virginia, so its route will obviously take it close to Sandy. You'd think they have hung on a couple of days to let it pass!

So Sea Land Mercury is still continuing her voyage regardless and is now reporting 72 knot winds at 18Z.

Last reported waves and swells were 7.5 m and 5 m, respectively, in the 12Z report. Ship Saimaagracht (PHCQ) to its northwest is in 55 knot winds and 8 metre waves.

http://www.ogimet.com/cgi-bin/gsynop?lang=en&esc=2&nav=Yes&lat=30N&lon=080W&proy=orto&base=bluem&ano=2012&mes=10&day=27hora=18&vwi=Wi

These are both very large container ships and their anemometers are several tens of metres above sea level, so speeds will be a little more than at the normal 10 m.

stevenmu

The missus is in Florida at the moment, she was meant to be going to NY for a few days but needless to say that has been called off. Apparently the media over there is making a huge deal over it, so there's very little chance of anybody not being warned.

Tenger

stevenmu wrote: »

The missus is in Florida at the moment, she was meant to be going to NY for a few days but needless to say that has been called off. Apparently the media over there is making a huge deal over it, so there's very little chance of anybody not being warned.

Well it is a big deal so hopefully the warnings are heeded......the relatively underwhelming impact of Irene last year may make some ppl leery of warnings.