These are pictures from Twitter of the Jersey Shore, mostly taken during this morning’s high tide. Keep in mind that the storm is not scheduled to reach land until around 6 p.m. (moved up from previous estimates), with another high tide coming a few hours later.
Hop it for the pictures.
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!
You know that little storm, the perfectly named Hurricane Sandy, from the Caribbean? Yeah, well she’s about to screw you.
At virtually the same moment today, a flurry of weather folks tweeted a link to the latest model, which predicts Sandy will take a westward track… right into your kitchen, on or around Tuesday morning. I'm calling its projected path the Cone of Death, but that's a working title.
The bad weather will start on Sunday and perhaps continue into Wednesday – Halloween – as Sandy expands into Frankenstorm. We’ll let a smart guy from the AP explain: [6 ABC]
The storm is a combination of Hurricane Sandy, now in the Caribbean, an early winter storm in the West, and a blast of arctic air from the North. They're predicted to collide and park over the country's most populous coastal corridor and reach as far inland as Ohio.
Yeah, it’s the Perfect Storm 2.
And since it’s a somewhat slow sports time right now, we’re going to cover it. But shit, I don’t know anything about weather. You know who does, though? John Bolaris.
I’ve been spam tweeting the out-of-work weatherman a quite-serious offer to bring his alarming rants and weather forecasts to Crossing Broad. He won’t answer. So, I've decided to cut out the middle man – basically me – and name J-Bo our weatherman for Frankenstorm, by bringing you his Tweets. Aggregated, of course.
Over to you, John: [lightly edited]
Hurricane Sandy winds 105 mph is moving through the central Bahamas North 16mph. The next 48hrs confident with track stay off Florida coast. However, by late Saturday night Sandy will start to head NE away from the coast. BUT huge blocking to North & vigorous trough to west will cont. At first slow down Sandy, also at this time 2 things will begin to unfold: Sandy will begin her transformation into a extratropical storm, meaning she loses her tropical traits, BUT continues to grow in size. Windfield expands, intensity remains same or even becoming more intense. As storm now will feed on baroclinic transformation, becoming a hybrid of great intensity (possibility of historical strength). Also, as she Interacts with trough (becomes negative), she now will start to bend back towards the east coast (nao is the most negative then it has been), helping to block a Northeast exit (still small window to exit east, but that window is closing quickly). BIG question is where exactly does this Perfect Storm 2 begin it's bend and how sharp, majority clustering is now starting to come around for a possible strike anywhere. From the Delaware Bay as far north as Eastern LI, with the overall center of the guidance putting it near Ocean county NJ by Halloween am. Talk about a Halloween nightmare. This storm has a bunch of rare atmospheric conditions coming together at once, hence the name Perfect Storm: #1 late season Hurricane, #2 Extremely high pressures across Greenland. #3 Extreme trough closing up turning negative & it's base getting cutoff. #4 Astronomical high tide takes place on Sunday. All this leads to deep concerns for the East coast from Norfolk to Philly, Nyc, capes.
Right now what we could experience along the shore would be Major tidal flooding (poss severe depending on track), beach erosion, hurricane force winds or gusts. Pounding rains & winds of long duration widespread power outages. Now keep in mind this isn't just a shore hit, across all major east coast cities could experience tropical storm force winds gusts 60 plus, not out of the question hurr gusts. Pounding rain & wind of over 24 hrs, flash flooding is likely & widespread, power outages, trees down, lines snap. With all this being said, still have another 48hrs to refine and say with much more certainty with what is going to happen or not. Standby.
Standing by, John.
Stay tuned to CB for all your Frankenstorm updates. Now over to Asian reporter Tricia Takanawa, who has a look at the dangers of plagiarism. Tricia?
Be sure to follow our own John Bolaris (@JohnBolaris)
