Guest Post by Willis Eschenbach
As at 2 PM Pacific time, here’s the current position of Sandy and the projected path.
SOURCE: National Data Buoy Center
I had said a couple of days ago, when Sandy was a hurricane, that it would not be a hurricane when it hit the coast. How did that go?
Well, as of the time that this location and projection of the path was done, the NDBC has shown all the nearest stations. Not one of the actual observations is showing sustained winds over 50 knots, and that’s a long ways from the 72 63 knots that marks a hurricane.
Please note that the big damage from such storms is the flooding, so I am not minimizing the likely extent of the damage. It will be widespread. However … not a hurricane.
w.
Addition by Anthony:
Harold Ambler has a photo of storm surge in Rhode Island here
Flooding in the subway in Newark, NJ (via FirstHand Weather on Facebook)
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Well done, Willis! Right again! Thanks for reporting!
Has anyone noted any MSM reporting this? As far as I can tell it is still hurricane Sandy, and will be for all time.
The MSM downgraded it immediately after landfall. Just check CBS or any of the others.
I cannot find a photo or video that looks like a major storm surge. In New York City, all I see are events of water sloshing over seawalls. Wind damage seems all but nonexistent, though one crane happened to collapse. I just do not see the major storm that has been hyped for two days. Sorry, but the MSM are demented. Given the MSM’s propensity for unbridled hype, they should not be allowed to play with computer models.
Yep, It’s no hurricane…..There’ll be damage and flooding. Any big storm arriving during a full or new moon is going to have exacerbated flooding over the 12-24 hours it takes to arrive, cross and pass…. and the news teams which are nothing now but glorified info-tainment purveyors, with the emphasis on hype, catastrophe and propaganda, will be whooping it up for all it’s worth… sigh.
I long for the days when people just got on with the job of making the best of the day and went about their lives with a bit of decorum….;-)
Up here in northernmost Vermont we were told to expect 80 mph gusts… It’s 9:25 and as far as I can tell, no one, anywhere, is getting 80 mph gusts.
Note to self, this is a good thing.
It did look frightening for a while there so I don’t blame the fear mongering msm too much, and I’m glad that I didn’t get to experience tree smashing, power outage causing, food rotting winds… But if this is an example of Climate Chaos, bring it on!
P.S. How many days since a hurricane has made landfall in the USA?
The flooding is bad now in and around NYC (high tide). Here’s a link to a site with lots of photos, breaking news tidbits, and wild/fringe commenters:
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2012-10-29/postcards-underwater-new-york
Weather Channel calling ‘record storm surge’; beating 1892 (I think it is) … water to Wall street … 3′ of water on floor of exchange …
Watch live? http://www.weather.com/tv/tvshows/live-stream
(Note to mods: trim link out if it is undesired)
.
I’m in central Ohio and we’re getting 5o mph gusts. We’re about 400 miles from NYC.
This will turn out to be another MSM over-reaction. The worst case was going be a Cat 1 huuricane. There was never any chance of it making land fall as anything stronger than that.
Thanks Theo Goodwin October 29, 2012 at 6:25 pm. I should have rechecked. I was too cynical there, and too optimistic about the storm surge it seems.
Don’t you wish everyone would admit it when they make mistakes?
Frankenstorm downgraded to Frankenfart?
Willis,
Thanks, I found a lot of confusion from the media re the landfall location and time for Hurricane Sandy. Based on what I saw it looked like Cape may but the media is all over the place. even up to central NJ 70 miles north.
I dont care if it is still a hurricane or an ex tropical storm, what I really want to know is if the west side highway is under water or not?
Article on the effects of subway flooding. Note the picture of Hoboken station and the lame attempt at flood control (a few sandbags). The station is now flooded. Questions should be asked, as to why no proper flood barrier.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204840504578087113950736132.html
We’re in eastern MA (Framingham). A tall 30-y/o spruce at the corner of the house was uprooted by fierce wind gusts (maybe 60 mph?) this afternoon, and now rests at about a 20º angle on the power and other cables running to the pole. Surprisingly, we have not (yet) lost power, and the wind and rain have diminished considerably (c. 10 PM), but I’m mighty nervous about this tree resting on the power line.
In Dedham, SE of here, No. Two Son had an old oak tree in front of his house come down and take out power for the whole street. There are reportedly a lot of trees and branches down in the region, so the power companies (mainly NStar and National Grid) are plenty busy. We’re in the queue, but as we have power, I don’t expect we’re high up.
Hurricane or no, it’s pretty impressive to have a cyclonic storm hitting New Jersey blow down trees here in Massachusetts at the same time. I’m impressed.
/Mr Lynn
Don’t see the purpose of this post except for self-aggrandizement. Whatever it’s precise nature on impact, it was and still remains, a terribly destructive storm. And not just flooding. Wind a major factor as well.
Hurricane/T.S. Irene related posts on WUWT concerning sub-Hurricane damage.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/09/01/tropical-storm-irene/
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/08/29/even-the-tv-news-community-is-asking-if-irene-was-overhyped/
It is now quite clear that saltwater is in the NYC underground. At least part of it. How much won’t be known until about 10 am after the next high tide passes. The storm surge may still be rolling up Long Island Sound as I right this. The precautions MTA took with Irene were the same (or less) than they took with Sandy. It will be interesting to see how the MTA and ConEd (and the City Government of NY) prepared for this storm surge after the Irene dry-run.
If it takes 2 days to get the subway running and power on to lower Manhatten, the civil engineers and electricians will deserve a year’s pay and a key to the city.
If it takes 2 weeks to get everything back running, they will have done a HEROIC job. NYC might be under a foot of wet snow in 48 hours, the public will be coming unglued with impatience, but the guys doing the dirty jobs will be outright heros in my view.
If it takes 2 months to get everything back running… well, it wouldn’t surprise me. There are only so many spare parts, spare transformers, and spare man-hours on hand. System failures have very non-linear dynamics.
At least the MTA got the subway cars out of harms way. New Orleans ruined 800 buses by parking them in a place to flood.
http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/text/refresh/MIATCUAT3+shtml/300101.shtml claims 80 mph sustained winds at 9 pm EDT = 0100 GMT. So, there still are hurricane-force winds despite Sandy’s current designation as a post-tropical cyclone. http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/news/20121027_pa_sandyTransition.pdf has a discussion of post-tropical cyclones.
Note that the NHC had no hurricane warnings up at the coast, only offshore. They were forecasting it would be an extratropical low at the time of landfall (personally, I though I saw an eye was still mostly intact at landfall.) I think I saw a NHC reference to substantial temperature differences near the center, an extratropical trait.
A hurricane is a tropical cyclone with sustained winds of 64 kt (74 mph) or more, but point taken.
The central pressure at landfall was 28.02″ Hg from some random source I read. That’s 949 mb, which is more typical of a strong Cat 3 storm ( http://geography.about.com/od/lists/a/hurrcategories.htm ). I think the huge breadth of the wind field is what kept the central wind speeds down – it’s blowing like crazy up here in central New Hampshire. Heck, my pressure is now 29.27″ (991 mb).
To have a strong wind, you need closely packed isobars. Like Camille, not like Sandy.
Got a friend up new Green Bay. I’m assuming by the time it gets that way it’ll be spent. Right?
DaveE.
Oops, that’s near Green Bay.
DaveE.
There’s a story in SciAm about Sandy being the biggest storm ever.
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=sandy-vs-katrina-and-irene
What is their criteria? Seems a bit suspect to talk about storm diameter when the storm seems to have ingested the Frankenbaby. The seaward expression of Sandy seems, well, meh…just a mundane deteriorating storm. They talk about the lowest barometric pressure EVER, whereas other sources say it ties the New England Clipper of 1938. Again, the largest diameter storm [since imagery could determine that].
http://mashable.com/2012/10/29/hurricanes-irene-vssandy-compared/
Compares Sandy & Irene….and you can see the great big chunk of storm being absorbed.
Ugh on that WSJ article.
“…The potential for a once-in-a-century subway flood has been a growing cause for concern as sea levels have risen.
‘We never had a weather condition as adverse as this, but we always knew that as the water warmed, there’s a great deal more energy to these storms,” said former Lt. Gov. Richard Ravitch, who led the MTA in the 1980s…'”
Yeah, that’s it. It’s an unprecedented storm due to warmer water and rising sea levels, all because of climate change.
_Jim says:
October 29, 2012 at 6:51 pm
Maybe my standards are too high. I thought that storm surge meant tidal surge; that is, the whole darn ocean comes up on land and stays a while. When it retreats there are ocean going vessels on the beach. That is what happened in the big ones on the Gulf coast. My best memories are of Camille. What we are seeing in NJ and NYC I would call storm slosh. For the most part, the flooding does not reach the top of wheels on vehicles. Those vehicles are undamaged and can be driven as soon as the water recedes just a tad.
I see no wind damage at all. That screams “not a hurricane.”
Was anyone killed by wind or storm surge? I believe not and I hope not. Stepping on a live wire does not count.
After hyping this storm as if it were Katrina, everyone associated with weather in the MSM should resign. The MSM needs to get a life.
A comment I read from Seeking Alpha:
“Bob – my gma called. she’s 95. she was worried the flooding would get her on the 6th floor of her condo. thanks TWC for scaring her.”