NOAA: Hurricane Drought Hits Record 118 Months

Sandy not a major hurricane, eh?

Sandy was not a hurricane at all by her landfall in New Jersey. She WAS a "perfect storm" though. Moon, tides and another weather system combining for maximum effect. Thank God she hadn't gone to cat 3 or 4!

That's no comfort to your mom, though. And I know a number of folks in the same boat. Prayers up for her to be comforted.

Not issuing hurricane warnings was stupid.

Were we listening to the same forecasts and warnings? I recall days of warnings about the possible danger from the storm. Hurricane, tropical storm...to-MAY-to, to-MAH- to.

Christie was telling us to stay off the beaches, too!

> Sandy was not a hurricane at all by her landfall in New Jersey.

Well,... according to Wikipedia's article (Hurricane Sandy):

...Sandy briefly re-intensified to Category 2 intensity on the morning of October 29, around which time it had a wind diameter of over 1,150 miles (1,850 km). The convection diminished while the hurricane accelerated toward the New Jersey coast, and the hurricane was no longer tropical by 2100 UTC on October 29.
About 2 1/2 hours later, Sandy made landfall near Brigantine, New Jersey, with winds of 80 mph (130 km/h)...

Brigantine is in Southern New Jersey, about 10 miles south of where my Mom's house used to stand. Her area was destroyed by a terrible storm surge.

Now, I grant you that the latitude that far north means Sandy was no longer a "tropical hurricane", but the last time I looked at the definition of "hurricane" force winds, the threshold for a Category 1 hurricane was 74 MPH (Saffir-Simpson hurricane wind scale), and Sandy hit with 80 MPH.

So we can bandy the definitions of terms all day long, but in my book, a devastating, thousand-mile wide, cyclonic storm with winds above 74MPH qualifies as a hurricane, even if the official meteorological definition says it's just a storm. Of course, YMMV.

> Prayers up for her to be comforted.

Thank you, very sincerely, and much appreciated.

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