I don’t know what you’re talking about. Sandy’s sustained winds on New Jersey were in excess of 85 MPH, making it a Category 2 hurricane. The only reason I could imagine someone claiming it wasn’t a hurricane is that it wasn’t considered tropical as of about 2 1/2 hours before hitting New Jersey.
There are a number of parts to defining a hurricane, going beyond wind speed, and yes, it starts with it being tropical. Sustained winds over 75mph alone would qualify tornadoes, Nor’easters, blizzards, and many inland thunderstorms as ‘hurricanes’.
Hurricanes are a tropical phenomenon which gains its energy from warm, humid air over oceans, and while they often have rain walls, storms like Sandy are caused by somewhat or wholly distinct temperature differentials and
dewpoint differences and while rotating and may have less cloudy areas in the center area, they are more characterized by fronts. Quite simply, they work differently even if they both have high winds.
‘Hurricane Sandy died down after hitting the Bahamas, but retained some of its organization, and water vapor. ‘Superstorm Sandy’ gained the vast majority of its energy from the remnants of the tropical storm colliding with a cold front in what is called a Fujihara(sp?) effect. That’s why a lot of the storm was actually dry, and why it extended out over Ohio while still centered in NY/NJ, with tropical storm force winds spanning over 1100 miles - far larger than a hurricane.
It keeps getting called ‘Hurricane Sandy’ by the folks who try to imply it was related to Global Warming, but the seas it developed in were not abnormally warm, and the force of it came from feeding that humidity into that cold front.