Hurricane Sandy and Possible Northeast Superstorm | Weather

Current Status

Hurricane Sandy is currently hitting Jamaica hard as a strong category 1 hurricane with winds of 80 mph! it is coming in perpindicular to the coast which means that it will be devastating for the areas east of Kingston, especially for the mountainous areas... Blue Mountain, which is NE of Kingston, has an elevation of around 7,000 ft and will funnel a lot of the moisture that is pumping into the region. They could see 1-2 feet of rain with major flooding coming off the mountains. Pressure is 973 milibars which is very low for a category 1 storm, in other words as it was coming ashore it was strengthening.. Sandy will then come back out into open waters as a category 1 hurricane later tonight and set its sights on Cuba. Sandy is expected to make landfall later tonight as a category 1 hurricane then after that move back into the open waters of the Atlantic. 

Superstorm???

For those who are just reading this today and are wondering what a "Superstorm" is, check out last night's blog: Northeast Superstorm??

After it comes off Cuba, Sandy is going to move just to the east of north and cross the Bahamas early Friday as it begins to make a slow turn to the northeast. After that the possibilities of where Sandy will go are starting to look a little more clear due to what we call a Rex blocking pattern in the North Atlantic.

Basically us weather geeks call it a high over low style pattern and it is almost impossible to budge. What happens is that a large ridge of high pressure in the upper levels of the atmosphere sits ove one location ( in this case the North Atlantic ) and all of the lows that come in from the west either slowly go under the ridge, or go up and around.... As you can see below, the ridge is huge and over the weekend there is already an upper low sitting under the ridge... 

As Sandy churns her way up the east coast and starts to TRY to move into the open waters of the Atlantic ocean she will start to encounter the effects of the Rex Block. Basically Sandy and the low that is sitting underneath the high will play bumper cars.. Then Sandy will feel the effects of the North Atlantic high and start to get pulled back towards the west where Sandy will then possibly merge with another disturbance rounding the bottom of ridge. This is the crucial juncture in the development of what could be a major storm for the north east US. If, where,  and when the systems do merge will all determine the motion of Sandy and the effects that will happen after the merge occurs.

From the latest guidance it appears that almost all computer models are suggesting this scenario to happen. Because of this and the major problems that could occur due to the impact of this potential storm I will be putting out 2 updates per day on Sandy.

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