This
storm is serious bad news. That hurricane has a lot of heat to dump,
so snow may not be much of a problem. The problem is that the strong
cold front will dump that heat and that means unbelievable rain and
the worst floods ever. Seriously folks, if you are even slightly
exposed to raging creeks anywhere in the North East, get out of there
and do not return until the weather breaks.
The
last remembered worst flood is just a hint on how bad this can
become. You will be saying wow when that dried up old creek turns
into a hundred yard wide flood plain. So yes be scared and act
accordingly. No one is going to be able to help you at the height of
the storm.
And
yes this one promises to kill people who are unwary.
What
I am trying to say, if you know you are vulnerable, this is the one
time that you practice your escape drill. Pack up the SUV, grab the
albums and roll out to visit Gramma and do not wait for everyone else
to hit the road.
For
once we have ample warning that it will be bad and we even know were
it will focus. Katrina was never so lucky.
It is
the flooding stupid!
NOAA to East:
Beware of coming Halloween 'Frankenstorm' next week, could bring snow
to Ohio
Posted: 10/25/2012
By: SETH BORENSTEIN AP
Science Writer
WASHINGTON - An
unusual nasty mix of a hurricane and a winter storm that forecasters
are now calling "Frankenstorm" is likely to blast most of
the East Coast next week, focusing the worst of its weather mayhem
around New York City and New Jersey.
Government forecasters
on Thursday upped the odds of a major weather mess, now saying
there's a 90 percent chance that the East will get steady gale-force
winds, heavy rain, flooding and maybe snow starting Sunday and
stretching past Halloween on Wednesday.
Meteorologists say it
is likely to cause $1 billion in damages.
The storm is a
combination of Hurricane Sandy, now in the Caribbean, an early winter
storm in the West, and a blast of arctic air from the North. They're
predicted to collide and park over the country's most populous
coastal corridor and reach as far inland as Ohio.
The hurricane part of
the storm is likely to come ashore somewhere in New Jersey on Tuesday
morning, said National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
forecaster Jim Cisco. But this is a storm that will affect a far
wider area, so people all along the East have to be wary, Cisco said.
Coastal areas from
Florida to Maine will feel some effects, mostly from the hurricane
part, he said, and the other parts of the storm will reach inland
from North Carolina northward.
Once the hurricane
part of the storm hits, "it will get broader. It won't be as
intense, but its effects will be spread over a very large area,"
the National Hurricane Center's chief hurricane specialist, James
Franklin, said Thursday.
One of the more messy
aspects of the expected storm is that it just won't leave. The worst
of it should peak early Tuesday, but it will stretch into midweek,
forecasters say. Weather may start clearing in the mid-Atlantic the
day after Halloween and Nov. 2 in the Northeast, Cisco said.
"It's almost a
weeklong, five-day, six-day event," Cisco said Thursday from
NOAA's northern storm forecast center in College Park, Md. "It's
going to be a widespread serious storm."
With every hour,
meteorologists are getting more confident that this storm is going to
be bad and they're able to focus their forecasts more.
The New York area
could see around 5 inches of rain during the storm, while there could
be snow southwest of where it comes inland, Cisco said. That could
mean snow in eastern Ohio, southwestern Pennsylvania, western
Virginia, and the Shenandoah Mountains, he said.
Both private and
federal meteorologists are calling this a storm that will likely go
down in the history books.
"We don't have
many modern precedents for what the models are suggesting,"
Cisco said.
It is likely to hit
during a full moon when tides are near their highest, increasing
coastal flooding potential, NOAA forecasts warn. And with some
trees still leafy and the potential for snow, power outages could
last to Election Day, some meteorologists fear.
Some have compared it
to the so-called Perfect Storm that struck off the coast of New
England in 1991, but Cisco said that one didn't hit as populated an
area and is not comparable to what the East Coast may be facing. Nor
is it like last year's Halloween storm, which was merely an early
snowstorm in the Northeast.
"The Perfect
Storm only did $200 million of damage and I'm thinking a billion,"
said Jeff Masters, meteorology director of the private service
Weather Underground. "Yeah, it will be worse."
But this is several
days in advance, when weather forecasts are usually far less
accurate. The National Hurricane Center only predicts five days in
advance, and each long-range forecast moves Sandy's track closer to
the coast early next week. The latest has the storm just off central
New Jersey's shore at 8 a.m. on Tuesday.
As forecasts became
more focused Thursday, the chance of the storm bypassing much of the
coast and coming ashore in Maine faded, Cisco said.
The hurricane center's
Franklin called it "a big mess for an awful lot of people in the
early part of next week."
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