Storms
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Cloud Precipitation

Hurricane Sandy grows to a thousand miles wide as East Coast awaits arrival of 'storm of the century'

Amy Oliver and Lydia Warren
Daily Mail
Mon, 29 Oct 2012 09:40 UTC
Hurricane Sandy has strengthened to nearly 1,000 miles wide with deadly winds in excess of 85 miles per hour - as hundreds of thousands of residents scrambled to higher ground, public transport systems shut down and thousands of flights across the country were cancelled.

The New Jersey shore is expected to take the brunt of the massive weather front - which forecasters said could be the largest in U.S. history - as Sandy hits near Atlantic City around 2am on Tuesday and churns north, with 50 million people in its path.

The worst of the Category 1 storm, which experts say is accelerating as it moves northwestward, is expected to bring a 'life-threatening' surge of seawater up to 11 feet high, coastal hurricane winds and a barrage of heavy snow in the Appalachian Mountains.

Nine U.S. states have declared states of emergency with the National Guard poised to swoop in, and President Obama has warned the nation to brace itself. 'This is a serious and big storm,' Mr Obama said after a briefing at the federal government's storm response center in Washington. 'We don't yet know where it's going to hit, where we're going to see the biggest impacts.'


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Cloud Precipitation

Superstorm: Part of famed Atlantic City boardwalk on verge of collapse

Aubrey Whelan and Amy S. Rosenberg
Philly.com
Mon, 29 Oct 2012 09:26 UTC
New Jersey - Hours before the worst of Sandy was supposed to come ashore, conditions in Atlantic City were already quickly deteriorating on Monday morning, with major street flooding and authorities reporting that the north end of the boardwalk is already on the verge of collapse.However, conditions were poor, making it difficult to travel to the area.

Massive waves pounded the beach and the entrances to the boardwalk were flooded and impassable. Three shelters are already reported full as Atlantic Avenue was already flooded with three feet of water at 7 a.m. and it was increasingly impossible to drive. Strong winds battered the boardwalk making it hard to stand. Emergency workers tried to get some of the homeless to leave but a few stubbornly stayed on their benches, at least until the worst of the storm arrives later today.

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Cloud Precipitation

Eastern U.S. braces for dangerous superstorm

Allen G. Breed and Jennifer Peltz
Yahoo! News
Mon, 29 Oct 2012 00:00 UTC
Image
© The Associated Press/Gerry Broome Utilities and state road workers monitor the situation on Virginia Dare Trail as rain and wind from Hurricane Sandy engulf the beachfront road in Kill Devil Hills, N.C., Sunday, Oct. 28, 2012.
New York - From Washington to Boston, big cities and small towns were buttoned up Monday against the onslaught of a superstorm that threatened 50 million people in the most heavily populated corridor in the nation, with forecasters warning that the New York area could get the worst of it - an 11-foot wall of water.

"The time for preparing and talking is about over," Federal Emergency Management Administrator Craig Fugate said Sunday as Hurricane Sandy made its way up the Atlantic on a collision course with two other weather systems that could turn it into one of the most fearsome storms on record in the U.S. "People need to be acting now."

Forecasters said the hurricane could blow ashore Monday night or early Tuesday along the New Jersey coast, then cut across into Pennsylvania and travel up through New York State on Wednesday.

Airlines canceled more than 7,200 flights and Amtrak began suspending train service across the Northeast. New York, Philadelphia, Washington and Baltimore moved to shut down their subways, buses and trains and said schools would be closed on Monday. Boston also called off school. And all non-essential government offices closed in the nation's capital.

The New York Stock Exchange said it will be shut down Monday, including electronic trading. Nasdaq is shutting the Nasdaq Stock Market and other U.S. exchanges and markets it owns, although its exchanges outside the U.S. will operate as scheduled.
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Windsock

Hurricane Sandy forces New York evacuations, mass transit closure


My Fox NY
Sun, 28 Oct 2012 12:32 UTC
Transit officials in New York are preparing for a total shutdown of subway, bus and train service as Hurricane Sandy continues to bear down on the metropolitan region.


    • All service will be suspended at 7 p.m. on Sunday.

    New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo ordered the Metropolitan Transportation Authority to start planning for an orderly suspension of service.

    New York City subways and buses will start phasing out service at 7 p.m. Metro-North Railroad and the Long Island Rail Road will suspend service at 7 p.m. Sunday.

    The city's mass transit system is the nation's largest. The subway alone has a daily ridership of more than 5 million.
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    Bizarro Earth

    A hurricane once more, Sandy defies the rules

    Jon Hamilton
    NPR
    Sat, 27 Oct 2012 05:30 UTC
    Sandy
    © Handout/Getty ImagesIn this satellite image provided Friday by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Hurricane Sandy's huge cloud extent of up to 2,000 miles churns over the Bahamas, as a line of clouds associated with a powerful cold front approaches the East Coast of the U.S.
    It's still unclear whether Sandy will be a devastating storm or just a bad one.

    It is clear, however, that Sandy will be remembered as the storm that broke all the rules and baffled the nation's top weather forecasters.

    Early Saturday morning, the National Weather Service downgraded the storm from a hurricane to a tropical storm - only to return it to hurricane status a few hours later. Either way, forecasters warn, "widespread impacts" are expected along the coast.

    Three days before reaching land - a time when the National Hurricane Center usually puts a bull's-eye on a small stretch of coast - government forecasters were still talking about the possibility of the storm striking anywhere from Maryland to New York.

    Their uncertainty was especially surprising because hurricane track forecasts have become so good in the past couple of decades. They are usually accurate five or more days out.

    Yet during a press conference on Friday, James Franklin of the NHC was still deflecting reporters' questions about Sandy's track. "We cannot be precise at this stage about exactly where it will come in," he said.

    Forecasters say Sandy just isn't like other hurricanes.

    "The whole thing is unprecedented," Henry Margusity of AccuWeather told NPR's Melissa Block. "We've never seen anything like this."
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    Cloud Precipitation

    The true threat of hurricane 'Sandy'

    Shepard Ambellas
    theintelhub.com
    Fri, 26 Oct 2012 00:00 UTC
    Mitt Romney cancelled one of three campaign stops this Sunday in reaction to the recent weather threat presented by hurricane "Sandy" which is predicted to affect parts of the eastern seaboard, thus stopping Romney from appearing at the Virginia Beach rally he had previously scheduled.

    Hurricane Politics
    © Official White House Photo/Pete SouzaPresident Barack Obama receives an update on the ongoing response to Hurricane Sandy
    Meanwhile, President Obama has already been briefed on the storm as of late Wednesday and east coast residents are urged to monitor local weather reports for what is being called a "super storm".

    With Sandy's wide wind field of 550 plus miles merging with a polar air mass over the eastern US, things could get pretty rough.

    The storm also has the potential to bring massive amounts of rain and snow.

    An excerpt from the New York Times reads, "The storm is also expected to dump as much as 10 inches of rain in the area where it makes landfall and to create a significant storm surge that will lead to flooding throughout a large coastal area, perhaps most seriously in Delaware, forecasters said.
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    Cloud Precipitation

    Tropical Storm Son-Tinh leaves 8 dead, nine missing in Philippines

    Malu Cadeliña Manar
    SunStar
    Fri, 26 Oct 2012 15:02 UTC
    Phillipines
    © Google Maps
    Tropical Storm 'Ofel' (international name: Son-Tinh) left at least eight people dead and nine missing on Friday before heading away from the country's area of responsibility toward Vietnam and southern China.

    National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council (NDRRMC) Executive Director Benito Ramos said the fatalities included an 88-year-old woman who allegedly died of hypothermia and 77-year-old man hit by a falling tree, both in the central Philippines.

    NDRRMC reported three persons drowned in separate incidents, two children killed by a falling tree and a girl buried in a landslide in separate incidents in the central and southern Philippines.
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    Cloud Lightning

    Powerful typhoon set to strike central Vietnam


    Tuoitrenews
    Sat, 27 Oct 2012 14:45 UTC
    typhoon Son Tinh
    © National Hydro-Meteorological Forecasting Center The expected path of the typhoon
    Typhoon Son Tinh is moving fast in the East Sea towards central Vietnam and is forecast to hit the area tonight if its current route remains unchanged, said the National Hydro-Meteorological Forecasting Center.

    With a speed ofn about 25 km, Son Tinh is the fastest storm that has affected Vietnam in the past 10 years, said agriculture minister Cao Duc Phat who is also head of the Central Steering Board for Flood and Storm Prevention and Control.

    The storm is expected to be 160 km east of the coast of Nghe An and Thua Thien-Hue, with winds of 103-132 kph and gusts of over 132 kph this evening, the center reported.
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    Cloud Grey

    'After 26 years in TV weather and two years with NOAA, Sandy may pose the greatest risk to human life that I have seen': Hurricane Sandy even looks scary from space

    James Nye and Beth Stebner
    Daily Mail
    Fri, 26 Oct 2012 16:27 UTC
    New York has just been declared a state of emergency in advance of Hurricane Sandy which is expected to hit the East Coast late on Sunday, with the possibility it will halt subways and ground planes. Governor Cuomo said the declaration allows the 62 counties to help localities better prepare for the storm with access to federal funding and the national guard.

    Hurricane Sandy is looking more and more ominous as it makes its way towards the East Coast, and local authorities are preparing for the worst, predicting at least $1billion in damage and the possibility and up to 375,000 New Yorkers could be evacuated. Meteorologists expect a natural horror show of high wind, heavy rain, extreme tides and maybe even snow on higher ground beginning early on Sunday.

    Image
    © AFP/Getty ImagesThis NASA TV frame grab shows Hurricane Sandy from the International Space Station as it barrels up the Atlantic Coast of the United States
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    Cloud Lightning

    Hurricane Sandy devastates the Bahamas leaving 22 dead


    TDN.com
    Fri, 26 Oct 2012 13:30 UTC
    Image
    © AP Photo/Franklin ReyesResident Antonio Garces tries to recover his belongings from his house destroyed by Hurricane Sandy in Aguacate, Cuba, Thursday Oct. 25, 2012. Hurricane Sandy blasted across eastern Cuba on Thursday as a potent Category 2 storm and headed for the Bahamas after causing at least two deaths in the Caribbean.
    Hurricane Sandy raged through the Bahamas early Friday after leaving 22 people dead across the Caribbean, following a path that could see it blend with a winter storm to hit the U.S. East Coast with a super-storm next week.

    Sandy knocked out power, flooded roads and cut off islands in the storm-hardened Bahamas as it swirled past Cat Island and Eleuthera, but authorities reported no deaths in the scattered archipelago.

    "Generally people are realizing it is serious," said Caroline Turnquest, head of the Red Cross in the Bahamas, who said 20 shelters were opened on the main island of New Providence.
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