To use a professional term...because it's F'n huge!
Posted on 10/31/2012 12:57:33 AM PDT by kathsua
Hurricane Sandy is posing a monster challenge for weather forecasters and emergency agencies, due to an amazing combination of meteorological factors, but what's just as amazing is how well they've been able to predict what seemed to be an unpredictable disaster.
"It looks like we've been fairly consistent on this, even five days out," Chris Landsea, science and operations officer at the National Hurricane Center in Miami, told me today. "I think when all is said and done, on the track forecast, we're going to be quite accurate."
Sandy's path, which took a left turn from the Atlantic to slam head-on into the heavily populated Northeast, is just one of the unusual aspects of this storm. "The size of this system, the late-season nature, and the track — all these are fairly unique characteristics," Landsea said. To look for precedents, you have to go back to infamous hurricanes such as Agnes in 1972, Hazel in 1954, even the great storms of 1944, 1938, 1815 and 1804. But today, the region is so much more populous and developed that the impact is certain to be far greater.
(Excerpt) Read more at cosmiclog.nbcnews.com ...
It was odd how the GFS flopped around like a fish and finally, grudgingly, followed the Euro. The problem wasn’t forecasting Sandy which is not very hard but forecasting the upper trough and short wave that ultimately pivoted Sandy to the west (which would have caused a nor’easter without Sandy).
Maybe you can help me out here, but I’m having a heck of a time understanding why they waited until the water shorted out power substations to shut them down. With historical surge/flooding data, you’d think they’d have pulled the plug before things got shorted out. Or is it a wash, cost wise to replace equipment either way?
How is a lowly CAT 1 Hurricane a ‘superstorm’?
Answer: because it hit New York.
But those CAT 4 and CAT 5 storms that wreak havoc across red states? The media doesn’t care because their feet are still dry.
Exactly, I’ve been through multiple storms stronger than this one.
To use a professional term...because it's F'n huge!
So of course the government hailed as “the rescue” of everyone in its path was closed the day people needed help the most. The whitehouse website gives websites for people to go to when their power goes out.
To analyze why Sandy appeared so large in more accurately constructed images, its west end was getting peeled off by the cold front and sent north. Notice the big long cloud that curves upward and goes to eastern Canada. That is the cold front. Those clouds were no longer part of the Hurricane. There were traveling the opposite direction the hurricane was traveling in that area. That long cold front cloud mass was traveling south to north. The west end of Sandy was moving north to south. Looks like Al Gore constructed that Hurricane image with a crayon.
GOES satellite monitors the western hemisphere.
Why would I try to fake you out?
Here is the full image taken yesterday, not necessarily the same time frame
As stated before, that long tail of clouds is where the jet stream was flowing and it was the cold front. Those clouds were moving south to north the entire time Hurricane Sandy was still a Hurricane. So to include them in an image and insinuate they are part of a counterclockwise rotating hurricane, is misleading and deceptive. What you are looking at now is not Hurricane Sandy, which never left the sea except during her flyover of the Bahamas.
If that is a true image, and that requires a close examination of cloud structure size compared to underlying geographic area, then the systems have combined. That is 2-3 days beyond Hurricane and a new hybrid. That long tail however was never part of Sandy before it weakened to Tropical and made landfall. That was the original cold front which also was stripping off and incorporating the western end of Sandy. The cold front itself leading up to landfall was driven by the Jet Stream, which is very powerful. Basically Sandy had no back side we she landed as a strong Tropical system. And now that the cold front has taken over, it stopped being a tropical system 1-2 days ago.
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