One year ago: Hurricane Sandy

[CrazyC83]

It formed today one year ago, and the models had already been suggesting that something extraordinary was in store...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/cap ... -year-ago/ (Washington Post - features a picture of this site!)

[cycloneye]

This is a recap by Dr Jeff Masters.

One year ago today, here is what I wrote in my blog post, Tropical Depression 18 forms south of Jamaica: "Tropical Depression Eighteen is here, and appears poised to become Tropical Storm Sandy by early Tuesday morning. TD 18 is over very warm waters of 29.5°C, is in a moist environment, and has light wind shear of 5 - 10 knots. These conditions are very favorable for intensification, and TD 18's heavy thunderstorms are steadily organizing into curved spiral bands….It is unclear at this point whether or not the trough pulling TD 18 to the north will be strong enough to pull the storm all the way out to sea to the northeast; a very complicated steering environment will develop late this week, and it is possible that a narrow ridge of high pressure could build in over TD 18 and force the storm to the west-northwest, with a potential threat to the Northwestern Bahamas and U.S. East Coast by Saturday, as predicted by the ECMWF model."

[CrazyC83]

It was already a fairly large storm by then - before the interaction with two troughs. A sign of things to come for sure.

[angelwing]

My week of watching hell approach began...

[CrazyC83]

My week of watching hell approach began...

That week was nothing short of watching every model, every minute practically, since the implications were enormous. Some of them brought hurricane conditions even up where I live (which did not verify, I had sustained winds around 40 mph and gusts around 60 mph at the peak).

[galaxy401]

Wow can't believe it has been a year now.

Crazy one of your posts in the Sandy thread is featured on a tweet on the link.

[CrazyC83]

Wow can't believe it has been a year now.

Crazy one of your posts in the Sandy thread is featured on a tweet on the link.

I noticed that! I was doing the Recon posts at the time (when Sandy was developing). I didn't do as much later since I was more focused on preparation.

[CrazyC83]

October 23, 2012: Not much change. Sandy strengthened some but was still a tropical storm. Models still mixed as the GFS was still taking it out to sea although ensembles were trying to turn it somewhat (even if so far north near Atlantic Canada), so a trend might have been starting. But it was not a hype situation yet...

[CrazyC83]

Today was a turning point in the life of Sandy.

1) Sandy strengthened to a hurricane and then made the first of so many land impacts in Jamaica as a Category 1 hurricane.

2) An unprecedented data surge was brought in, forcing special balloon flights from ALL weather offices in the CONUS in order to provide better upper-air data. Once that was done, the critical evening model runs pretty much locked in the US landfall solution.

[Bizzles]

Does every one remember that feeling when you finally realized after all those track shifts that it really really was going to hit NJ? And then trying to convince all your non-weatherfreak friends this was going to be really bad?

Definitely a storm I'll never forget. Going back through the Sandy thread in the archives is CREEPY!

[Bizzles]

It's page 6 in the archives if anyone can't find her.

[CrazyC83]

Does every one remember that feeling when you finally realized after all those track shifts that it really really was going to hit NJ? And then trying to convince all your non-weatherfreak friends this was going to be really bad?

Definitely a storm I'll never forget. Going back through the Sandy thread in the archives is CREEPY!

Indeed, once the models locked in, it was a creepy few days! The stakes became so high for nearly 100 million people...

[CrazyC83]

One year ago tonight, Sandy was rapidly intensified - already slammed Jamaica - and was about to hammer eastern Cuba and Haiti. Consider nearly half of Sandy's death toll was in the first few days...

[terstorm1012]

Hi everyone

I found this article about the Delaware Bay shore towns in New Jersey from the Newark Star-Ledger very interesting. Please take the time to read it--it's a long one, and it's very good.

http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2013/1 ... build.html

[wxman57]

Does every one remember that feeling when you finally realized after all those track shifts that it really really was going to hit NJ? And then trying to convince all your non-weatherfreak friends this was going to be really bad?

Definitely a storm I'll never forget. Going back through the Sandy thread in the archives is CREEPY!

We had it hitting NJ/Long Island in our 7-day forecast from the 2nd advisory on October 22nd. Never bought the GFS out-to-sea idea. It was difficult to convince some clients that even though it may not be classified as a hurricane at landfall they still needed to activate their hurricane response plans.

[Bizzles]

Hi everyone

I found this article about the Delaware Bay shore towns in New Jersey from the Newark Star-Ledger very interesting. Please take the time to read it--it's a long one, and it's very good.

http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2013/1 ... build.html

As a resident of "Central Jersey", which is a imaginary slice of NJ centered around I-195 that's not quite South Jersey (all sand/pine) and not quite North Jersey (all asphalt), I can tell you I know a lot of people from that area of NJ (a little farther south of what we call "The Dirty" or "Dirty South"). Sadly, this article (IMO) is not far off from the truth. The real problem is to 99% of Americans, it's just a weird blank area on the way to AC or the Shore. This means it doesn't warrant in the eyes of the media and/or politics (where they can make tons of money off of saving the ever-popular "Jersey Shore") any time or effort on their part since it won't mean more advertisement dollars or votes.

I suppose in life some people win, some people loose. I just wish it wasn't the case with events like this. Every time I go down to see my friends that live out near Bridgeton, I make sure I stop along the way and buy something from a local business (ma-pop) in hopes that every little bit helps. Guess that's all us little guys can do to help our neighbors.

For myself it was just a matter of spending the next few weekends picking up leaves and branches. For these people, they are still dealing with Sandy.

[CrazyC83]

Does every one remember that feeling when you finally realized after all those track shifts that it really really was going to hit NJ? And then trying to convince all your non-weatherfreak friends this was going to be really bad?

Definitely a storm I'll never forget. Going back through the Sandy thread in the archives is CREEPY!

We had it hitting NJ/Long Island in our 7-day forecast from the 2nd advisory on October 22nd. Never bought the GFS out-to-sea idea. It was difficult to convince some clients that even though it may not be classified as a hurricane at landfall they still needed to activate their hurricane response plans.

Indeed, the status of the storm made things so difficult - remember Bloomberg's goofs about it not having a "hurricane type" storm surge, just a slow steady rise? We all knew he was wrong all along.

[Bizzles]

One year later, nothing but blue sky and

[CrazyC83]

It was truly a storm like no other though. Like something we may never see again in our lifetimes.

Sunny and cool here today...

[Alyono]

The Sandy track forecast was extremely easy. One of the easiest storms one can forecast.

6 day forecast error was less than 105NM and the 7 day error was comparable to the mean 5 day error, and that was mainly due to timing