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possible storm tracks for Sandy
It seems that there is a hurricane coming up from the tropics. It seems that there is also a cold front zooming down from Canada; depending on the path of the hurricane, the two could meet right over Long Island.
During a full moon.
Should those three events come together in a “perfect storm”, New York City, The Hudson Mohawk Valley, The Raritan Valley, pretty much all of Southern Connecticut, and all of Rhode Island will likely see damage, maybe some in Massachusetts too.
Hurricane Irene is still fresh in my mind, probably because here on LI, we are still fighting with LIPA (Long Island Power Authority) about it and because of the abysmal storm response we suffer through, the Governor is appointing new LIPA management next month.
I’m planning for power outages. Another storm track projection has the storm making a sharp inland turn and plowing through Pennsylvania.
If we have the kind of damage that happened during Irene, we might not have power in many Democratic strongholds like Philadelphia on Election Day. Even if they can get the power back on by that day, we will have lost the last critical week of GOTV on the bluest part of the very blue Northeast coast.
NPR reported earlier today that Massachusetts’s Gov. Duval Patrick had already ordered emergency response plans to be delivered to him by Friday from utility companies there. I think Governor Cuomo should be on the phone to our utilities as well. So should a few other governors.
Remember, Irene was just a hurricane. Sandy will be a hurricane, plus a cold front, plus a full moon.
If I were President Obama, I might consider the possibility that some of those swing states may become disaster areas (one storm track puts Virginia and Maryland in harm’s way) and have a contingency campaign schedule in case POTUS needs to drop everything and do crisis management. You would not want Sandy to turn into Obama’s Katrina.
On a somewhat related note, those of you who live in any of the storm threatened areas, please make preparations, heed any evacuation orders, keep up-to-date with the storm’s progress and try to stay safe. After the storm, a myFDL diary to check in and let us know you made through OK would be a relief from worry.
And NO, NY does not have early voting.
49 Comments
*gulp*
The ensemble model runs are converging as well.
Cynthia. Love it. A trifecta. I’ve been seeing this more than perfect storm reporting, but you add a context to the situation.
Thanks.
The 5 PM advisory discussion.
Here’s a pic of the storm from space
It was only a matter of time before the east coast got their Katrina. Hope the poor people have enough money to get in food supplies. A lot of poor people couldn’t leave New Orleans because their monthly funds were exhausted and most didn’t have a car. There is time right now to do something about this.
This is the time.
I imagine that shelters and food banks are stocking up, all community entities. I’d like to see some Pro-Activity from the local, State, and Federal agencies.
Hello?
You know I meant Hello to the agencies, not you, sweet Mare.
Oh. Dat’s a biggun’. I hope Barry didn’t offend somebody **up there**. Dang, be sure to get out your waders and roll up the car windows…
Two of those things are “weather” and one of them is a celestial phenomenon, none of them is “climate”. Don’t mean to pick nits here but the distinction is important. This is why on every cold day, some clown has to say “So much for global warming”. This hurricane could possibly be related to a warming climate, (though late and off season hurricanes happen), but the cold front is a pretty typical one for this time of year. The full moon is not climate, nor is it weather, though higher tides coupled with a storm surge can cause more damage than they otherwise would. It’s just as likely that the storm surge will come ashore at a correspondingly low tide. “Weather” is an event while “climate” is a trend.
Speaking of Katrina, Obama hasn’t done squat for NO.
Wish we could just plus people when they make useful clarifying comments like this. In the meantime, kudos.
Why doesn’t the tri-state area have early voting, anyway?
Really don’t want to come off as a know-it-all or anything but as I said, the distinction is really important if we are ever going to be able to seriously discuss a changing climate.
Thanks for the kudo though.
I’ve been a hurricane watcher as long as I can remember:
I used to live in Virginia, then Florida, both likely targets.
Now I’m in Western Mass at about 72-and-a-half degrees West longitude;
Sandy is 3 degrees further West;
Boston is a degree and a half further East;
the hurricane is about 18 degrees latitude South of here
(That’s about 720 miles to the South and about 70 miles to the West;
hurricanes nearly always turn left; it’s headed North right now:
If that’s due North, look for it to start turning right, that is, East from 76.5 degrees W.:
If it turns far enough, it misses the Eastern Seaboard;
if it curves a little more, it misses me;
if it curves a little more yet, it misses Boston, and all of us:
And I’m not wishing it on Bermuda.
Oops, not so fast: It was 4 degrees W of me, but a new reporting just moved it to 75.8 degrees W long.: Better for the United States.
I’m wishing and hoping for the best, but very bad is possible.
The full moon ay be a celestial phenomenon, however it does mean “spring” tide, that is: high tide will be at its highest level.
Increasing the chance of flooding, especially for the Ocean Front property in the Hamptons (That would be a real disaster, and require immediate and full disaster aid form the Feds).
They cannot plan. All they do is react.
i saw a segment on this on my local portland oregon news tonight and the anchor mentioned how this could very well impact election day due to power outages possibly not being fixed before electiond day.
hunker down cynthia and all the northeast peeps. stay warm, stay dry, and stay inside if at all possible. i hope everyone has their foul weather supplies stockpiled and an emergency plan.
tweeted and recommended with thanks cynthia
I agree it increases the risk of flooding. I said the full moon increases the risk of flooding. But a full moon is not “climate” nor is it “weather”!
The full moon is not a weather event :( . The higher tides are about 20% higher during full moon and the low tides are about 20% lower. In point of fact , if the storm occurred during the part of the day where low tide occurs the having a full moon would help negate the effects of any storm surge. It is far too early to tell when the storm will occur where. NWS updates it’s predictions continually and the predictions 5 days from now will bear little resemblance to those of today. I know – I’m a pilot and well acquainted with NWS predictions.
One benefit of living for half a century is the knowledge that almost always such dire predictions and warnings – don’t pan out and things almost always turn out far more moderate than page-view seeking newspapers,blogs or television shows make them appear.
Consider – do the weather reports in your area accurately predict rain even several days in advance? Probably not? Than predicting the penultimate storm a week in advance is likely a bit premature perhaps.
Calm down, have a bit of tea and wait a few days at least more before getting worried. People are always seeking attention by playing the Chicken Little gambit – after a while you learn to ignore the harbingers of doom and gloom.
SOrry – one more thing – Current NWS predictions are calling for Sandy to NOT be a hurricane when it arrives at the east coast and are now predicting only a 25% chance of tropical storm winds on the east coast this Sunday – and it decreases after Sunday. So…. really … a non-event .
On the other hand, climate can reasonably be thought of as an aggregation of weather. If Sandy hits Long Island with something approaching the force of Irene, that will make two storms of the century in two years on one little spot of land. At some point, a pattern emerges. You can talk about nine of the ten warmest summers on record as much as you want without getting anyone’s attention.
No single hurricane can be attributed to global warming. But the warmer, more energetic weather systems that were predicted have arrived. If you’d rather, you can show people the retreat of glaciers or arctic ice caps. But please, show them something.
LOL
You are so funny See AGNES
You know, I really don’t know where this is coming from. I have stipulated to all of this. I’ve said that weather consists of events and climate measures trends. I’ve said that it’s possible that this storm is related to the warming of the climate. I have agreed that if a storm surge coincided with a high tide, (or by extension an even higher tide that occurs during a Harvest Moon), that storm surge has the potential for causing greater damage than it otherwise would. I really don’t understand why people are dissecting my comment in order to score points or something by agreeing with me while suggesting I’m mistaken about something. Whatever the motive, I see no real point in continuing this pointless discussion of things that we agree on.
Margaret–I agree that we agree and that you’re right. My point is that we are losing a debate critical to global survival to people who see every snowflake as a repudiation of global warming. I’m suggesting to you and others that some of the more dramatic manifestations of weather may be a necessary tool in making our point even though your point is correct scientifically.
It’s very hard to explain to people that global warming models predict more extreme weather with lots of colder than average days in the midst of a warming climate trend that is measured in degrees over decades. We aren’t doing it very well.
Big storms focus attention. They create a moment where teaching is possible. I’m not ruling out any strategy. Let’s try them all.
There have been several October surprises.
1. Just how batshit crazy Republicans are, which is really no surprise at all. Still, reminders like the one from Mourdock this closer to the election will have an effect on voters (or so says my crystal ball).
2. Obama’s performance during the first debate and just how much it cost him in the polls, conventional wisdom having been that talking is Obama’s strong suit and debates don’t affect voting decisions.
3. Romney’s performance during the third debate. I am used to his 180 turns, but that display surprised even me.
4. A President of the United States, and one known as “no drama Obama” no less, calling his fellow Presidential nominee a bullshitter when speaking on the record to a reporter. It’s too soon to tell whether that will affect voters.
In all, nothing terribly interesting.
Looks not so good this morning: 76.9 degrees West at 5am: Drifting toward the United States fast at this point: I’m guessing Cape Hatteras or, if it misses Hatteras and Virginia, possibly the South Jersey shore: If it’s the latter, we’ll get drenched here in New England. I hope it doesn’t knock the power out.
Highest sustained winds have dropped from 110 early last night to 100 at 8pm to 80 now: Just barely a hurricane by that reckoning. It is traveling toward the US at 13 mph on a “325-degree” trajectory:
315 degrees is exactly Northwest; 360 is exactly North; 337.5 is exactly North-by-Northwest: These are numbers that indicate it will hit Cape Hatteras, the North Carolina coast, assuming it will turn right as hurricanes usually do (I mistyped that they turn left above: They do turn right).
If it continues in a Northwesterly direction it will make landfall before [South of] Cape Hatteras. A direct his on Hatteras could mean flooding in the Tidewater area of Southeastern Virginia, including most of the state’s largest cities, including Portsmouth where I was born and still have lots of relatives.
For a direct hit on New Jersey or New England, that digital compass direction will need to advance Eastward, toward 360 degrees then beyond zero:
If it very soon curves sharp right and goes beyond zero, than, here it comes! But there’s still some slight chance that it will head out to sea.
NY tried to pass a “no fault” absentee vote bill, where ou would not have to specify why you wanted to vote absentee. Right now there are specified limited grounds like being permanently disabled, currently bedridden, out of the county on E day.
Every cycle I run an election monitoring call in center. I have to leave in mid afternoon (the qietest time) to go vote, because I am actually in county.
And it’s a perjury offense to lie about that.
So, the bill was stopped by the Republicans in the NYS Senate.
I don’t know about the other states.
I wonder what the United States’ demonic Torturers did to the Guantanamo prisoners last night. I wonder how many of them were killed by being exposed to the hurricane. I wonder how their Torturers went about exposing them to the hurricane. I suspect some died:
At least 11 people were reported killed nearby in Cuba’s Guantanamo province, including Santiago, where the legally blind Teddy Roosevelt [according to legend and propaganda] led the charge up San Juan Hill, and presumably asked the Spaniards and Cubans to stand over in the light where he could see them better while fighting them.
As you may have heard on Democracy Now! yesterday, voting early makes your ballot twice as likely not to be counted and twice as likely to be tampered with.
Irene was worse on LI than predicted, and more to the point with the election, LIPA’s repsonse was abissmal.
Same thing with the winter hurricane we had back (was 5 or 6?) years ago. If you have ever had to keep feeding a fireplace 24 hours a day to keep your pipes from freezing, you will not soon forget how quickly things devolve when the power stays out.
Sorry, had to check: That was C-SPAN, not Dem Now!.
I started googling around looking for updated forecasts this Friday morning and I see the WaPo thinks it may hit close to DC.
A meteorologist in Boston says we should not focus so much on where the eye of the storm passes b/c once the cold front hits itm the wind cone will expand to about a 250 mile radius, so if you ware withi that distance from the eye, you will feel it.
Some of the buildings that were destroyed on Gitmo had stood there for 200 years.
If WaPo is right, it occurs to me that Washington DC was built on a swamp. That’s why you don’t see huge sky scapers there, no bedrock to support them.
While not below sea level, like New Orleans, it is low lying land.
5:00 AM EDT Fri Oct 26
Location: 26.3°N 76.9°W
Moving: NW at 13 mph
Min pressure: 968 mb
Max sustained: 80 mph
Above is the Weather Service’s storm facts report for 5am Eastern Time this morning. In a few minutes, at 8am, I’ll post the new one.
NOAA (as in Noah’s Flood?) updates its info every 3 hours: At 8, 11, 2, and 5: -am and -pm.
For those wishing to keep checking for themselves, here is its link:
http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/
8:00 AM EDT Fri Oct 26
Location: 26.4°N 76.9°W
Moving: NW at 10 mph
Min pressure: 970 mb
Max sustained: 80 mph
The 8am report shows that its position has barely changed in 3 hours, which is usually a sign of the hurricane building energy. Storm motion has further slowed to 10mph, and its direction has altered, yes, to the right, toward the North, and a little less West. Still 80mph. The air pressure measured in the hurricane has raised/weakened, but just by 2 millibars, which is no doubt within the margin of error.
Trajectory at 7am was 325 degrees: Exactly North-by-Northwest.
This shows the up-to-date radar loop
The 11am report looks very bad for those of us here in the Northeast.
11:00 AM EDT Fri Oct 26
Location: 26.7°N 76.9°W
Moving: N at 6 mph
Min pressure: 970 mb
Max sustained: 80 mph
Pressure and wind speed remained about the same, but movement slowed and turned more Easterly, now aimed at the direct North:
If it continues to turn right, it’s headed here.
(Probably.)
To Margaret’s excellent point, intensity would be a climate factor due to ocean warming, and coastal effect would be in increased severity due to incremental sea rise which together with the weather and astronomical factors all contribute to a potential occurrence. You can’t really separate out all of these. There may also be (and oh, I do hope there are) some ameliorating effects of climate change/weather so that this storm proceeds northward away from the coast and peters out – (and maybe some spiritual functions as we all bend our minds to that object might help as well.)
Factors are in play that none of us understand completely as the good planet tries to adjust to what we’ve wrought. Best wishes for safety to our friends, and thank you for the heads up, cindy.
I wonder if the editor-in-chief at the National Constitution Center was having a little trouble coming up with an original story and headline. Just noticed this as I check my email at yahoo.
Say hello to Pres. RMONEY, Sandy is poised to finish off Obama. No matter how he handles this disaster he has to take away from the campaign at the critical moment and he’s trailing in the polls. If he handles the storm he loses, if doesn’t he loses. Willard must be smiling.
LOL,
Propositions on suppositions. Let’s not forget that Rmoney could easily relapse with a serious foot-in-mouth proclamation of devastating proportions.
Then we need to consider the known and yet unknown, knowns that could possibly change last minute electioneering and voting results.
Speaking of October Surprises, I refresh the page and yet another story at Badger Democracy that could develop traction.
I guess we’ll still need a weather man to know which way the wind blows.
First and foremost, you and little prop Stay Safe!
11:00 PM EDT Fri Oct 26
Location: 27.7°N 77.1°W
Moving: N at 7 mph
Min pressure: 969 mb
Max sustained: 75 mph
Hurricane Sandy’s direction is 350 degrees: A little to West of due North (which is 360 degrees – or zero degrees): If it continues in a straight line, it hits the Southern North Carolina coast. Since I posted 12 hours ago, it has traveled one degree North: 70 miles. Since 12 hours ago, it has veered to the West by two tenths of a degree: That’s a little better for our chances here in the Northeast of avoiding landfall in New Jersey or Long Island.
Wind speed has dropped by 5mph since 12 hrs ago: If it drops one more degree, it will cease to be a hurricane. The measured Air Pressure has dropped since then, but only by an insignificant one millibar.
2:00 AM EDT Sat Oct 27
Location: 28.1°N 76.9°W
Moving: NNE at 7 mph
Min pressure: 969 mb
Max sustained: 75 mph
Direction is now 015: The storm has turned sharp right: 25 degrees to the right since 3 hours ago. This could be following the expert-predicted pattern, and would not be good for us here in the Northeast. However, I have to hope that such a sharp right turn means that it is turning right as most hurricanes do, and that it will head on out to sea.
It is now headed directly at Cape Hatteras: The storm motion direction reading of 015 is slightly to the East of due North, but way to the West of exact North-by-Northeast, which is 045 degrees.