What's up with Sandy? Potential for major impacts along the East Coast

If you haven't heard about Hurricane Sandy by now you will very, very shortly.  sandy developed in the southern Caribbean south of Cuba/Jamaica and actually rapidly intensified over the island to a very strong Category 2 Hurricane.  Below is the forecasted track of Sandy by the National Hurricane Center:

The National Hurricane Center is forecasting Sandy to remain a Hurricane to just east of the Carolina's while weakening and eventually weakening to a Tropical Storm just off the Jersey coast.  Now you may think that b/c it's expected to weaken to a Tropical Storm it won't be that bad here...that assumption would be 100% false.  In this case there will be a trough associated with the Polar Jet Stream working eastward through the United States.  Below is a graphic from one of the computer forecast models (the GFS) for 7:00 AM Sunday showing the trough:

You will also notice an area circled in red.  These two highlighted features will prove to be EXTREMELY important with what Sandy does as she travels northward.  First we will take a look into the area highlighted in red:

This area circled in red is showing another area of low pressure.  b/c of the position and location of this low pressure this is referred to as a "blocking" low.  When low pressures are situated in this location they are referred to as blocking lows b/c they virtually can inhibit storm systems from drifting out into the open Atlantic and keep them closer to the US Coast.  In the end it's all going to come down to the strength and even location of the blocking.  If the blocking is on the stronger side that will vastly increase the chances that Sandy will have to track closer to the East coast.  If this block is on the weaker side this would give Sandy the chance to actually work out more towards the Atlantic.  At this time, however, it appears that this block will remain strong enough to prevent Sandy from escaping to the east and into the open Atlantic.

As far as the trough goes, this trough is important b/c eventually the trough is expected to phase with or "combine" with Sandy, it's just a matter of where this occurs.  Computer models are starting to come together in agreeing that this phasing will occur much earlier rather than later...possibly somewhere just off the Carolina coastline.  Once Sandy phases with this trough along with the Polar Jet Sandy will under go rapid and severe intensification.  

What to take off this as of now?

It's still a bit too early to panic and worry, however, if computer models at this time tomorrow continue to hint at this potential hard it will be time to start preparing for major impacts form this system.  These impacts would include:

• Severe coastal flooding/beach erosion.  Coastal flooding could be extremely serious, and could be a major hazard to any structures located close to the waters.  
• Damaging Winds.  A rapidly deepening system along with an area of high pressure to our north and blocking low to our northeast would create a very strong pressure gradient over the region enhancing the potential for very strong/damaging winds.  Potential for widespread tree damage/power outages would be likely, especially with many trees still having leaves on them and the ground being very saturated leading to weakened tree roots.
• Torrential Rains/inland flooding.  The potential would exist for over several inches of rainfall across the entire region leading to rapidly rising streams/rivers/brooks.  Heavy rainfall rates over a prolonged period of time would eventually lead to areas of inland flooding, especially along rivers/streams/brooks.  

Again, at this point it's still a bit too early to really get into the specifics but the potential and confidence is increasing that there will be serious impacts along the East coast but it's unclear as to what areas will receive the most severe impacts.  All of these details will continued to be narrowed down and answered over the coming days.

If you're looking to prepare the best thing you can do is just stock up on some extra food (especially canned foods and such in case you lose power), bottled water, batteries, flashlights, candles, blankets, and radios.  

impacts could begin as early as Sunday evening, however, it appears it would be more overnight Sunday through early Tuesday but these details will also be ironed out as we get closer.