Updates to Hurricane Sandy

During the overnight hours Hurricane Sandy actually strengthened.  For the better part of the past few days Hurricane Sandy remained steady with maximum sustained winds of about 75 mph with gusts in the 85-90 mph range.  As Hurricane Sandy continued to move in a NE direction she went over the warm waters of the Gulf Stream and with this she strengthened.  Hurricane Aircraft hunters have found that maximum sustained winds have increased to 85 mph with wind gusts as high as 105-110 mph and a central pressure of 946mb which ties the record for lowest pressure recorded north of Cape Hatteras, NC and when all said and done Sandy will be the Queen in this regards.  With this let's get right into the specifics...

Coastal Flooding/Beach Erosion  

It's now becoming more likely that the coastline of central/northern NJ northward into the lowest suburbs of NYC to the south facing shore of Long Island to western coastal CT will experience catastrophic storm surge of record levels and extremely damaging coastal flooding.  This will be a life threatening situation to anyone who was told to evacuate who chose not to.  Any buildings right along the water are likely to experience extreme damage or complete destruction.  Elsewhere across coastal CT/RI/E MA/NH/ME significant coastal flooding/storm surge is expected and will also pose a threat to property on the water front.  If you know anyone in an area which was told to evacuate and chose not to get the word to them to evacuate before it's too late and time is basically running out for them to do so safely.

Damaging Winds  

We are looking at widespread damaging winds all the way from NJ up to the US/Canadian Border.  We will be looking at widespread damaging winds lasting as long as 24-36 hours which will lead to widespread tree/power line damage and widespread power outages, potentially lasting for several days in the hardest hit spots.  The strongest wind gusts are expected to occur across the CT coast/RI coast/SE MA where winds could gust as high as 75-85 mph.  Here, during the peak sustained winds could be in the 45-55 mph range.

Rain/Flood Threat

We aren't looking at much in the way of rainfall as the bulk of the rain will be off to our west and southwest.  With that said we could see some spots pick up 1-2'' of rainfall with some isolated amounts of 3-4''.  With this the flooding threat will be real low, however, areas along rivers/streams/brooks may experience some flooding and especially the typical flood prone areas.

Thunderstorm/Tornado Threat

Typically with landfalling tropical system you induce the threat for isolated tornadoes.  While that potential did look extremely low leading up to the event, there have been some changes which have lead to a slight increase in the potential.  Later on this afternoon we will be experiencing some cold air advection in the mid-levels of the atmosphere along with increasing temps/dewpoints in the lower levels of the atmosphere...this will lead to a slight increase in instability and with that we can't rule out the potential for low topped t'storms and given the very strong wind shear there is a low threat for an isolated tornado.  If we are to get t'storms they will have the potential to mix down much stronger winds locally as well.  This potential will have to be CLOSELY watched.

Breaks/Peaks of Sun

There will be a dry slot moving into the region later on...with this dry slot comes the potential for some breaks or peak of sunshine.  If you happen to witness any sunshine today DO NOT let that get your guard down.  Any sunshine will only INCREASE the damaging wind potential and the winds we experience.  The sun would warm the atmosphere enhancing mixing allowing for much stronger winds to mix down.  If this occurs we could locally increase the gusts by as much as 10 to even 20 mph.

Below are graphics of all the mentioned threats:

Coastal Flooding/Storm Surge

Damaging Winds

T'storm/tornado threat