The Big One - only a matter of time before NYC gets major

[logybogy]

THE BIG ONE

Experts say it’s only a matter of time before a major hurricane strikes New York City. When it comes, you may want to have your evacuation plan nearby. If not, meet the fishes.

By Aaron Naparstek

Imagine the following: It’s a beautiful Labor Day weekend. Sunny, cloudless, 80 degrees. Backyard barbecues are fired up all over the metropolitan area, and the beaches of New York City, New Jersey and southern Long Island are jam-packed with bathers. The only sign that something unusual is happening is the relatively big waves rolling up on Coney Island. It’s a surfer’s paradise. Mike Lee isn't enjoying the long weekend. For the last two weeks, Lee, the Director of Watch Command at New York City's Office of Emergency Management, has been observing a series of weather systems form off the western coast of Africa, organize themselves into the familiar swirling pattern of tropical storms, and line up like airplanes coming in for a landing on the Caribbean. One of those storms, a category-4 monster hurricane with sustained winds of 140 m.p.h., is violently churning the ocean 350 nautical miles off the coast of Georgia.

A hurricane like this one can usually be counted on to curve eastward and die a harmless death over the Atlantic. But with a large area of high pressure hovering just off the east coast, the computer models at the National Hurricane Center in Miami are largely in agreement: This one is heading north, tracking a direct hit on New Jersey somewhere north of Atlantic City. Like the legendary "Long Island Express" of 1938, the fastest-moving hurricane ever recorded, it's moving quickly.

More....

http://www.nypress.com/18/29/news&colum ... arstek.cfm

[stormchazer]

New York always has to get in on the act.

[Downdraft]

You don't have to be an expert to predict that. Given an infinite amount of time you can say any point from Brownsville, Texas to Boston, Mass. will be struck by a major hurricane. Now narrow that down to this year, next year or the next 10 years and the forecast gets very tricky.