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)
Frank K. says,
“What incenses me, however, is the use of a natural disaster like Sandy to further the perverse political agendas of government and academic CAGW climate scientists.”
Being incensed is pointless – if we are exposed to stronger North Atlantic storms because of AGW, then we need to focus our efforts on taking measures to reduce the anthropogenic aspects in short order. Too many people here have been straining to not swallow a gnat, and are ending up having to eat crow. This is truly embarrassing for the WUWT crowd…
Not a power plant; if anything, a substation. (Word I saw said it was a steam production plant)
Take a GOOD look at the color of those arcs … that ain’t transformer oil going up, that’s product of arcing! Notice the color? Blueish … **** Oxygen **** … component of air …
While a transformer may have been damaged, more likely something else ‘went up’ … jumping to a conclusion on the basis of the slimmest of evidence is pure speculation, too.
.
Theo Goodwin says:
October 29, 2012 at 9:28 pm
Mitsouko says:
October 29, 2012 at 9:06 pm
Of course bad things happened because of the storm. But they are the kinds of bad things that happen in a tropical storm. At no time did the MSM say (or admit) that Sandy would be something like a tropical storm at landfall. They talked constantly about storm surge that could be expected from hurricane Sandy. As I said above, a dangerous storm surge is a tidal surge and the ocean comes on land for a while. That simply did not happen.
BS it certainly did by several feet!
My argument is with the MSM. I am not calling New Yorkers cry babies. Having trees knocked down by a tropical storm and losing power for a week or two is immensely painful but it is not the kind of pain that the MSM led us to expect. They led us to expect a hurricane pushing a true tidal surge.
Well up here (NJ) all the weather programs were saying that it wouldn’t be a hurricane at land fall because of the merger of the weather systems but that the wind speeds would still be around 80mph. They also explained the storm surge and said it would be slightly more than Irene, well they underestimated by a couple of feet! The damage caused to the NY subway system will likely cost $billions to fix. Around where I live there are trees down, road closures and power outages (80% according to PSE&G). I lost power last night at 5pm so haven’t seen TV coverage but the radio reports indicate that Atlantic City (v close to landfall) has been devastated.
Will S.:
Your post at October 30, 2012 at 8:52 am is silly. In total it says
Only you needs to be embarrassed, and that is by your post.
There is no evidence that “we are exposed to stronger North Atlantic storms”. In fact, what evidence there is indicates the opposite.
Sandy was a storm of a kind that has happened before and will happen again.
If the risk of such storms warrants defences against them then the defences are needed whatever the cause of the storms. Anything to assuage AGW is irrelevant.
And AGW is bunkum.
Richard
A wide-spread assumption propagated by an uninformed and assuming public.
Most all of ‘what’ you’re seeing in the way of arcs and sparks during a high-wind event like yesterday are LINE-SLAPS among short slack span power line runs … this removes the necessity of guying a short span usually when that short line span is used as a jumper between two taut (pulled tight) sets of lines …
Take a look at the lines in your area, not most lines are taut (pulled tight, with guys at the end or termination poles, where used) but you will also see loosely-hanging spans every so often usually running from the taut lines running up and down the street to a ‘spur’ line onto a side street.
Storm chasers see this all the time, and also falsely attribute the ‘arc’ or flash to a ‘transformer’ blow when in actuality it is debris coming across charged lines or line-slap on slack spans (as the twister imparts non-linear, circular winds).
.
Are you at all familiar with lower Manhattan?
Topographically speaking, and specifically how this relates to elevations above MSL (Mean Sea Level)?
Do you know what Wall street and Canal street were named for?
.
Fortunately, most of the generation was moved out of ‘the city’ decades ago (and esp lower Manhattan!) …
.
Pat Moffitt says:
October 30, 2012 at 8:10 am
“ . . . consider with the much higher wind speeds hitting the upper floors of skyscrapers and the consequences of windows being sucked out. . .
Hurricane strength winds carry debris and water with sufficient force to break glass (and demolish structures). There is no need to invoke “sucking” from a Low versus High pressure difference.
Wow quite a few posts on here panicking that it must be AGW because of one bad storm when it reached landfall was not a hurricane. Hurricanes have hit the coasts of Northern America before numerous times, but this is just a tropical storm compared. Bad as it is it could have been much worse and still been at least a cat 1 hurricane.
James says:
October 30, 2012 at 7:07 am
A hurricane is determined by the mean wind speed of at least 75 mph, gusts don’t come in to it. The range from cat 1 to cat 5 are all determined by mean wind speeds.
Phil. says:
October 30, 2012 at 9:17 am
I bet the subways in NYC are back online faster than people expect…
Sun is shining up here in New Hampshire…
Jeremy says:
October 30, 2012 at 8:24 am
“I agree with other sentiments reflected here – once again Willis’ smug attitude in the face of what is clearly a very rare and severe storm . . .”
I think you have put words and attitude to Willis that he has already disputed. My interpretation is that discussion of this storm should be based on what it was and what it did – considerable – and not on having the bizarre words, phrases, and theories of the CAGW crowd stick to the interpretation.
For example, there is a photo of cars on a NYC street with headlights on and people in them with water up to the door handles. With 3 or 4 days of hype and the mayor, governor, and President all saying “get out” – ask me if I care that some fool’s car got salt water in it? Facts are important.
James says:
October 30, 2012 at 7:07 am
Whoa, James, you mean the buoy had SUSTAINED winds of 50 knots? How did I miss that? Be still my beating heart …
James, you need to open your eyes for long enough to realize that for a hurricane, you need sustained winds of greater than 63 knots. Not 50 knots. Greater than 63 knots. So your sustained winds of 50 knots are nothing but a tropical storm.
My point was simple, my friend. The hurricane would die back to a simple storm before it hit the coast, but the MSM would keep hyping it as a hurricane … which is exactly what happened. Not only is the MSM hyping a storm as though it were a hurricane, you’ve been so sucked in and fooled by their BS that now you want to come here to scream about how there were “SUSTAINED wind speeds of around 50 knots” … color me unimpressed. I’ve sailed in 50 knot winds. And while 50 knot winds are scary, hurricane force (64 knot) winds have about twice the force as a fifty knot wind, and that’s a whole ‘nother ball game.
My advice? Don’t try to lecture a sailor about storms until you know what you’re talking about …
w.
PS—My claims were not about “two buoys”. The link showed all of the nearby buoys, every one of them. The storm was still well out to sea, and not one buoy was recording hurricane force winds.
Jeremy says:
October 30, 2012 at 8:24 am
Oh, please, go be a concern troll somewhere else. The only smugness here is yours. I quite clearly said:
I am just objecting to the MSM casting every storm that comes down the pike as a hurricane. This was a severe tropical storm by the time it hit land. Now, a severe tropical storm is a big problem, and I never said anything else than that this was not a hurricane. It continues our long period with very few landfalling hurricanes.
And if you don’t like me pointing out that the damage will be widespread but that Sandy was not a hurricane when it made landfall, my smug friend … sorry.
w.
W.E. said this:
> 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 knots that marks a hurricane.
For one: Threshold of hurricane is 64 knots, not 72.
For two: The storm only has to achieve this average for 1 minute anywhere
in order to be classified as a hurricane.
If the National Hurricane Center (NHC) determines that’s probably occurring,
even if doing so by extrapolation from “hurricane hunter” aircraft data
indicating that’s probably occurring at surface or whatever is “officially treetop
level”, that counts.
This data gets reviewed a lot, and gets reviewed a lot in comparison to past
storms.
********
Where I see Sandy getting wierd in terms of wind patterns: Ever since
Sandy started turning from northeast to a more northerly direction, or even a
little before, strongest sustained winds were in the SW quadrant. (Until at
most a few hours before landfall). This wierdness is probably related to the
extratropical wierdness that caused Sandy to take such a strange course.
That caused Sandy to show some extratropical signs more than a day
before landfall – which is common in hurricanes getting north of around 30
degrees N, especially outside peak and early-peak season.
******
Sandy *did not* officially landfall as a hurricane – but as a post/tropical
extratropical cyclone determined to have otherwise-hurricane-qualifying
winds somewhere.
Also, Sandy may get downgraded by post-season analysis the way Irene
of 2011 was. Irene was downgraded from bearing down on NYC as a
hurricane, to losing hurricane status when getting over cooler waters after
being over land in extreme SE Virginia.
Hurricane Allen of 1992 was upgraded from Cat-4 to Cat-5 about a decade
afterwards.
For those unfamiliar with the New York City/Jersey City area, underground construction has been going on for centuries now. There is literally no way to plug all the holes, because many do not “exist” on paper. The lay of the land (unlike New Orleans) is the first line of defense, and the pumps are the second. Anything else is cosmetic at best, and therefore a waste of time and effort.
Forgot to add the link showing the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale and wind damage illustration.
http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/aboutsshws.php
Ric Werme says,October 29, 2012 at 7:25 pm:
>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
Or, it could be that this storm was only showing “good signs” of “hurricane-
qualifying wind” offshore.
If the storm makes landfall with hurricane-force-qualifying-winds confined to
offshore, then the storm still officially landfalls as a hurricane. (Unless the
storm transitions to extratropical-type first, which Sandy appears to me to
have officially done.)
> (personally, I though I saw an eye was still mostly intact at landfall.)
“Eye-like features”, such as “eyes with overcast”, are a little common in
stronger extratropical cyclones around peak to half a day to a day after peak,
especially over ocean.
Also, it is at least a little common for landfalling hurricanes and stronger
tropical storms to “show an eye on radar” after landfall, until they are down to
maybe 45 MPH max-sustained.
> I think I saw a NHC reference to substantial temperature differences near
> the center, an extratropical trait.
NHC did officially declare this cyclone to have transitioned to extratropical
type when approaching landfall. They predicted about 1 day in advance
that Sandy would be “post-tropical / extratropical” (“my words”) in final
approach to landfall, as of their “forecast discussion 27”:
http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/archive/2012/al18/al182012.discus.027.shtml?
How about 1.5 days in advance? They were predicting the storm to be
landfalling near Atlatntic City, and to be transitioning from a hurricane to
an extratropical cyclone around or not much after landfall. While they
were reporting signs of the storm intensifying a little as a hurricane as of
~1.5 days before landfall.
That’s the #25 forecast discussion:
http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/archive/2012/al18/al182012.discus.025.shtml?
@_Jim 9:16am: Take a GOOD look at the color of those arcs …
Yes, they are BIG Electrical Arcs. Repeated and long lasting.
Now, you take a GOOD look at the orange light that flickers like a fire visible between the blinding arcs.
You are only half right that it is a sub-station and a steam generation plant. 14th Street is a Co-generation (i.e electrical power) plant.
REGARDING CRANE BENT in STORM-
why this particular n,y crane and not the hundred others?engineers r investigating.
yes extreme winds BUT this buidling site has been sited for dodgy work before.
One idea:i wonder if the crane was made with inferior chinese welds or steel?.
Remember in 2008, there was another crane collaspe in new york that killed 2 workers,
the investigation found out crane It had cracked metal at base stand & had big re welding job done by chinese company that did it for 1/6 of the price of the going u.s rate!
p.s re this mega storm, what r the odds of this happening again in n.y-hopefully it is a 1 in 100 years type scenario.peace.
An interesting article in the NYTime on damage. Noteworthy is that in addition to the photo, they have a thumbnail of where the picture was taken and indication of elevation / flooding on the map.
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2012/10/30/nyregion/hurricane-sandys-aftermath.html
Look at the map in the article. The only reason this tropical storm is getting all this publicity is due to its path. Otherwise, it is not unusual. It is certainly not due to “climate change”.
Hi Willis,
Now after Sandy is gone, can you please compare the actual path and the actual wind data with the predictions? I have feeling it will be large discrepancy; however, I can’t find the actual path and the actual data on the wind easily.
Theo Goodwin says:
October 29, 2012 at 7:40 pm
It’s not the beach, but a railroad track, does that count?
http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10151112885146130&set=a.443444786129.234228.18468761129&type=1
“Please note that the big damage from such storms is the flooding”
According to news reports in the UK, many of the deaths have been due to trees falling caused by high winds. I’m sure it’s of no comfort to their families to know that they are the exceptions rather than the rule w.r.t this storm.
Stephen Rasey says:
October 30, 2012 at 11:13 am
Could the orange colour come from the Sodium in the air in the form of salts?
DaveE.