As a massive winter storm at sea known as a Nor'easter prepares to skirts the Northeast coast of the USA, bringing with it high seas and bitterly cold weather in its wake, Dr. Ryan Maue writes:
Massive Nor'easter will develop a warm-core thru a seclusion process.The image of the storm is quite stunning for it's sheer size.
Compare previous image w/Hurricane Sandy - same 850-mb Wind speed & MSLP. Nor'easter wind field much stronger/larger.
[It is] maybe 4 times more powerful than Sandy based on integrated KE of wind field.
Compare that to these satellite photos of Hurricane Sandy:
Watch this animation of the storm as it is forecast to develop, click here to get it to animate full size.
The biggest difference here is the track, Sandy made landfall in NYC, this nor'easter is not expected to there, but will skirt the coast and will make landfall later in Newfoundland, But, it will have a significant effect on the northeast USA due to its ability to transport air mass.
He adds:
Not the #polarvortex this time. Textbook tropopause fold & baroclinic wrapupWhat that will do is act like a pump, and pull bitterly cold air in behind it (note the stream in the rendering above). The result will be a late March like no other, possibly the coldest late March on record for the area:The National Weather Service in Boston is preparing for blizzard like conditions in some areas, plus hurricane force winds at sea.They are even asking readers to "make the call" on snow amounts.
Reader Comments
to our Newsletter