You’re all going to die.
Today the National Hurricane Center updated Sandy’s CONE OF DEATH, which will almost undoubtedly include Philadelphia (there’s a free, embeddable CONE OF DEATH Watch that we’ve added to the top of this site, for you survival needs).
Frankenstorm is expected to make landfall somewhere between Connecticut and Virginia, with the most likely path taking it directly over Delaware or New Jersey, as is detailed by the CONE OF DEATH. Wherever it comes over land, winds and rain will extend out up to 300 miles from the center, and that’s to say nothing of the other storm and cold front it will be merging with.
Let’s now turn it over to our unemployed meteorologist John Bolaris. John?
Without shouting, please: [as always, John's Twitter forecast is lightly edited]
Anticipating widespread tidal flooding (perhaps record setting). Winds that could gust past Hurricane force (Philly, NYC including depending on exact track). Flooding rains likely. Some rain amounts 6-10 in places. Keep in mind this a storm of long duration rain from Sunday – Tues. Power outages will be widespread from the shore to the poconos. Possible snow in southwest quadrant of storm across central Appalachia.
If the storm takes the track across the Cape May inlet expect breeches & the formation of new inlets along the shore.
Please keep your pets safe. Load up on water, batteries, flashlights.
Right now Sandy is located 460 miles SSE of Charlestown SC, wind 80mph, forward north speed has slowed to 6 mph as forecast.
Sandy will transform into extratropical storm over the next 48hrs, move NE, then start to bend back towards east coast on Sunday. This storms is coming into a very rare atmospheric environment, which will turn once Sandy into "The Perfect Storm 2." Colossal storm. The winds, rain, tidal flood, flash flooding will cover the entire Northeast on Monday. Widespread trees down, widespread power outages. Time frame it starts during Sunday afternoon, then the HAMMER comes down on Monday & Tuesday. Take this storm seriously RT
Yes, retweet, please.
J-Bo is right, too. This is going to be bad. Need examples? This map forecasts anywhere from 4-10 inches of rain for our area:
This says there could be historic 10-foot storm surges (though that’s specifically for folks in Maryland and Delaware). Cape May County is going to announce that there will be mandatory evacuations along barrier islands on Sunday. And Camden school district has already closed on Monday and Tuesday.
Now let’s move on to the coverage: This will undoubtedly be the Super Bowl for local news. We can only assume that Cecily Tynan and Adam Jospeh have booked City Line hotel rooms. Only assume that FOX has slick and ominous graphics packages ready to go. Only assume that CBS Philly is preparing for dozens of viewers. Only assume that the folks at NBC 10 are ready to go with alien invasion B-roll (“just in case”) and have instructed Sheena Parveen and Jillian Mele to wear something “perky” because “our viewers come for you… and then stay for Glenn.”
To that point, are Glenn and Bill Henley the luckiest men in the world? I have the over-under set at 42 for number of photos from NBC-related Twitter and Facebook accounts over the next few days that include either Parveen or Mele, with at least 30 of those including an obligatory shot of Bill Henley to show that “we’re not sexist.” They’re off to a strong start today:
Look at that. Every picture, the same– soft hues, perkiness, and Henley visually excusing himself so as to not take focus off the girls. This is when NBC makes Sheena a star, and they'll be goddamned if Henley is going to get in her way! Of course, all this is only going to be muddied by the massive unintentional dong potential of Sandy:
As always, CB will bring you comprehensive coverage. We’ve already brought on John Bolaris by way of his Twitter account. We have a CONE OF DEATH watch, with a Twitter feed of Frankenstorm related accounts, pinned to the top of the site. And soon, we’ll bring you the Frankenstorm drinking game, for all your alcoholism needs.
Now let's have the words of the immortal Bill Pullman play us out: We will not go quietly into the night! We will not vanish without a fight! We’re going to live on! We’re going to survive!
