How Fujiwhara Effect Will Toss Hurricane Sandy Into U.S.
Occasionally, two tropical cyclones get close enough to one another to do the Fujiwhara dance. It happens only rarely in the Atlantic. Computer models predict that Sandy is going to do it, not with another tropical cyclone, but with the vortex center associated with the larger extratropical storm. … Read More
How Hurricane Sandy Can Become a ‘Frankenstorm’
To some degree, it probably will be a hybrid storm that shares characteristics of two parents: Sandy, a tropical cyclone (the broader term including hurricanes and tropical storms); and an extratropical “trough, or upper-level low pressure system associated with a big wiggle in the jet stream. … Read More
Sandy Is a Truly Unusual Event, Worthy of Our Attention
This year, Hurricane Sandy is threatening a wide swath of the East Coast from Virginia through Maine. Sandy remains a Category 1 hurricane with top winds of 80 mph as of 8 a.m. Friday. The expected path of Sandy resembles a backward “S as it will first swing away from the coast and then curve back toward the northwest.… Read More
Hurricane Sandy Looks More Likely to Slam Eastern U.S.
Recent studies have shown that blocking patterns have appeared with greater frequency and intensity in recent years, which some scientists think may be related to the loss of Arctic sea ice as a result global warming.… Read More
Hurricane Sandy Poses Growing Threat To East Coast
What is known with greater certainty is that Sandy is going to make landfall Wednesday in Jamaica, lashing that island with hurricane force winds and heavy rains, before charging northeastward into eastern Cuba. It will also dump heavy rainfall on Haiti and the Dominican Republic, which could cause life-threatening flooding. … Read More
Will Tropical Storm Sandy Threaten U.S. East Coast?
Some computer models, such as the one built by the European Center for Medium Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF), are showing that the storm could be near hurricane intensity when it strikes land somewhere between Virginia and Maine, almost a year to the day since the Snowtober storm struck the same area.… Read More
Grim Storm Scenarios Loom for Mid-Atlantic, Northeast
Several computer model runs have shown a slingshot scenario, in which Tropical Storm (or hurricane) Sandy initially moves out to sea east of North Carolina, but is captured by the jet stream and flung northwestward into the Mid-Atlantic or Northeast.… Read More
A Record Lack of Rain in Drought-Stricken Nebraska
As the National Climatic Data Center (NCDC) stated in its monthly drought report, several states also blew away their previous records. "It should be noted that the dryness this year has been so extreme and persistent that, not only did several states rank driest for several time scales... but their records were by wide margins compared to the prev… Read More
