Final Update On Sandy Oct 28, 2012

This will be our final actual official outlook on Hurricane Sandy. As far as track wise we are not changing anything in reference to the track. We feel pretty strongly that where we have this making landfall ..Sandy should make landfall..and then move at a west northwest movement from there before moving North.. So for those who may have missed the map here that map is once again:

While not changing the track we are not changing any of the information that is on that track. We still feel that winds could be sustained from 65-75 MPH with wind gusts not out of the question reaching 100 MPH (mainly across NYC & LI) Further inland locations should be 50-65 MPH with gusts reaching 85 MPH not out of the question.

This will be a dangerous storm. The one factor that makes this storm even more dangerous is the factor that these winds will be over a 24-36 and perhaps 48 hour time period.. Top this off with rainfall on the order of 4+ to 10 inches and you have a recipe for disaster with trees coming down, powerlines going down ..and Flooding where the heaviest rains set up.
We been informed early in the evening on Saturday that Pennsylvania Power and Light company is anticipating widespread power outages and if and when that does occur that it could be out for as long as 8 days. 
While many are calling this a NorEaster..Sandy is still very much a tropical cyclone and a hurricane at that. While transitioning may be starting to occur..this really is not going to be a saving grace but rather cause the storm to deepen rapidly as it phases with the trough coming towards the east coast. In a nut shell the pressure on this storm could get down into the 930s range which would really = a much stronger hurricane but because it will become a Hybrid it will still only be a category 1 ..if it were purely tropical. The question is on WHEN does it become extratropical ..

So we are looking at the following: 
1 Winds 50-65 MPH gusting to 85 inland locations (NE burbs of the big cities ) to 65-75 MPH with gusts up to 100 over the areas mentioned above..And again what is bad is that this will be over at least a 24 to perhaps 48 hr time frame that this occurs.
2. 4-10 inches of rain depending on where you are located which will lead to #3
3. Flooding, coastal and Inland areas
4. Storm surge
5 This will be occurring with a full moon .
6. And not hearing to much about this anywhere is the water temperatures are warmer then normal and this should feed a more explosion into the storm itself.
7. Wide spread power outages
8. Structural damage especially to weaker buildings...
We here recommend that once this begins that noone be traveling on the roadways. I mean seriously why put your life in danger?

We ask you if you live in these areas being effected to make sure your loved ones family and friends no the reality of what is heading towards them. It could save their lives! 

Now it seems as though guidance has pretty much settled on a landfall between Seaside Heights and NYC. Exact landfall really is unimportant because once extra tropical the wind field will expand and cover all the way back to locations like in Ohio..
Lets look at the guidance tonight...and quite frankly it is a little on the scary side. 

GFS shows a system getting down into the 940s but perhaps most impressive is this models ensemble means when you look at how tight the isobars are across the region..

The tighter the isobars the stronger the winds and you can see what the means is suggesting.

00z GGEM still takes the system into NYC and then rides down across Northeast PA..

European takes the system down to about 940 and has the landfall around seaside heights NJ.

GFDL is also into central NJ with its landfall.
So as you can see all the guidance is suggesting a Major storm that is going to be effecting those along the east coast. 
There are still people out there that do not believe anything is coming and despite what you tell them they refuse to believe. However, this is not something long range or fantasy but rather in the short term at 48-60 hrs out.

 The image above is the current radar with satellite overlayed and you can already see that moisture is starting to move up into the state of PA.. While the low itself is just down off the east coast of the Carolinas. The image below is the rainbow IR image. 

Now this next image you are going to be seeing is the steering currents and you can see why the system is moving to the NE at the present time but if you look west you can also see the trough that is expected to merge with the system which will help to make the transition from tropical to extratropical. You can also see that trough beginning to take on a slightly negative tilt and this along with the NewFoundland blocking pattern will be enough to tug this system back towards the NW into the state of NJ..

As is had been the case there is still a wall of shear around the system but despite this Sandy has been holding together quite well and is a Cat 1 on the hurricane scale.

Convergence and divergence continue to be decent across Hurricane Sandy..

Strengthening should start to occur once the change from tropical to extra tropical begins to occur. We want to stress that this is indeed going to be a epic storm system and perhaps historical as well as the hurricane season goes out with a bang.
Weather should begin to go downhill today with rain starting to occur later in the afternoon but the brunt of this storm will be felt from Monday morning into the day on tuesday..
As we are putting the finishing touches on this update the 6 Z NAM is coming out so we are going to include those images to show you that even the NAM is on board. The chances of this storm missing us are completely down to Nil..

As you can see the latest NAM also suggests we are in for one heck of a storm over the next 36-48 hours. 
As far as snowfall the only locations we are really seeing for snowfall is in Southwest Central PA into Eastern West VA and also Western VA.. (where they could be looking at snow a foot or more)..otherwise the rest of the region is looking at very heavy rains with very strong gusty winds to hurricane strength.

Remember we will be providing coverage from 12 noon today until around 4:30 PM and then back at 10:30 pm to go till 6:30 AM.

Please folks this is a serious storm and something you want to take serious..

From all of us to all of you being effected by this our prayers and heart felt love goes out to each and every one of you!

Hurricane Sandy Update Oct 27th 2012

We want to start this off with Mt Hollys Briefing from Friday. The reason why we are doing this is that it has become quite clear that Hurricane Sandy which will be turning into and take on extratropical status will be impacting the area . For some time we have been talking about this because we have been adamant about sticking with the ECM/NOGAPS blend.

A hurricane or strong tropical storm will affect the mid-Atlantic region late this 

weekend into early next week.  Sandy will bring multiple dangers to our area:

• Strong damaging sustained winds up to or exceeding hurricane strength (74 

mph) over a prolonged period of time (24 to 48 hours).  Gusts will be higher.

• Extremely heavy rainfall.

• Major flooding along streams and rivers.

• Major coastal flooding.  The full moon on October 29 just makes things worse.

• The eventual track of this storm will determine the area which is impacted.   While 

Sandy could still track a little further to our north, or a little further to our south, we 

will be feeling her effects one way or the other starting late this weekend (Sunday), 

continuing into Tuesday of next week.  

• Next briefing package will be issued by 1000 AM Saturday, October 27

th

.

• Monitor our website at weather.gov/phi.

As you can clearly see from the above that we are talking about a prolonged period of time as to having winds at hurricane force across the region with higher gusts.

The models have generally come into a much better consensus tonight and we are going to look at as much guidance here as we can. 

 We are starting off with the NOGAPS and as you can see by the NOGAPS it is showing essentially a central NJ landfall. 

The above is now the 00z ukmet and you can see this model to would take this thru NJ and into central PA. 

The above is the GFS and essentially showing the same thing as the rest of the guidance above so far and if you remember we said that this model would start to wake up at 72 hours and under . Now however i think it is very important now since we are mentioning the GFS that we look at its ensemble means..

Folks there is just no way to describe the above image other then by saying that is the most jaw dropping image we have seen in a long time. And the ensemble means takes this into central PA as well.

Now this above is the GGEM..Remember just 24 hrs ago it was essentially showing a miss and it to has now joined back in with the rest of the guidance in taking this thru what appears to be New Jersey.

The above is the GFDL from 00z and this is a little further south with it going thru the Demarva region. However we are still indeed talking about a powerful storm system.

The above is the NAM and with this as well you can see we are talking about going across NJ. 

Finally this brings us to the ECM and you can see that the ECM is taking this into around the Cape May Nj area and then moving it due westward into PA..

The track of this storm is going to put many of us in the NE Quad which is the most dangerous side of the storm that you would want to be caught in or maybe not depending on how you are viewing it.
Now lets look at the current environment for Sandy..

Convergence and divergence continues to be rather excellent across the storm system..
However, the one thing that we still do not like is the factor that the shear has not slackened off and a wall of shear is still in its pathway..

It is somewhat lessening around sandy but it is still something we do not like to see. However we are anticipating for her to hold herself together thanks to the convergence and divergence ..however we would still like to see that shear drop off.

You can see the steering currents are such that they will take sandy towards the NNW for the time being.

You can also see on the satellite overlay image with the radar that rain is already starting to pick up across the south east part of the USA as that is associated with Sandy..

What is happening right now with sandy we feel is a continuation of the dry air and shear that is taking  a toll on her.

Folks this is a serious  storm and we are asking all our  readers to stand guard and  keep am eye on this storm as it has deadly potentials across the region.
next update will be 24 hours from now!

Stay tuned for the next discussion on this DANGEROUS storm!                                                                                                                                                      

Hurricane Sandy Update October 26 2012

So we want to get into this right away. If you read back thru our past updates on this system we mentioned one thing that we did not like about the current atmosphere and that was the shear that was to the North of the system with in its projected path.. It was this shear that we said IF it would decrease that Sandy had a chance to become a major but that shear has never decreased. You can see this by looking at these two images...

There continues to be very high shear effecting this system . There are a few things that have to be remembered when it comes to tropical cyclones..
#1.. While severe weather such as Tornado's and thunderstorms need shear to form..a Tropical cyclone needs the shear to be as low as possible. Generally you would like to see about 5-10 knots and with an anti cyclone built over top of it. You can see the shear above is much higher then that. 10-20 knots is still manageable but it will slow down development and if shear is to high it can also rip a storm into pieces..
#2. A Tropical cyclone has to follow the steering currents and take the path of least resistance. It can not buck the flow so to speak. 
#3. Never use global models for a Tropical Cyclone pressure as they tend to either make them to deep or they tend to not be deep enough. Global models are good for trends and tracks...

Now with that being said you can see that there is a trough that is working its way towards the east coast and you can also see that there is a area of decreasing shear and this should allow the ULL to move a little off to the east which should allow the shear to decrease some. Pretty much at the present time Sandy has taken a beating with winds now down to 85 MPH but still a hurricane.

However you can see that despite the more ragged looking appearance that there is still some deep convection present by the brighter white shading in the visible satellite image. Presently Sandy is moving NNW and that is because she has no choice but to because of the steering currents that she is subjected to..

Presently the convergence and divergence across the system is excellent and at the very least this means that Sandy should be able to hold her own..She may weaken slightly more but as that shear decreases she will once again begin to intensify... 

Also still yet one more thing to keep in mind that what is happening to is sandy has been going thru some islands and land masses albeit small and this can also disrupt a system . This system really is not expected to start intensifying for about another 24 hrs ... And if a pressure says 944 for example 24 hrs from now a good rule is to add about 10 mbs on to that.. so reality says it would be 954 mbs..  Again though ..we do stress that the shear has to decrease as is suspected to happen and occur.
So lets look at tonights model guidance and it seems like we have two separate camps...On one side of the camp is the GFS and the UKMET. Both the GFS and UKMET allow the storm to be captured but at a further north position so the landfall is slightly further north. 

The GFS is kind of odd in the fact that it actually takes the system back south from 120 to 126 hours before it starts to move off to the NE. We been saying that the GFS will not really have a clue until it gets to about 72 hours and out.. But lets look at the ensemble means and you can see what the ensembles actually do with Sandy..

You can see its further south and actually takes the system into NE PA. This tells us the GFS is having a lot of issues with the players on the field and why the model run is so jumpy from just 6 hrs prior.
Here is the UKMET..

And you can see the UKMET is generally on the same page as the GFS. This is not exactly a camp I would like to base a forecast on because the Ukmet is generally a poor model to use for tropical cyclones.
Next up we will take a look at the GGEM which keeps the system off shore but then retros back towards Nova Scotia.

And this is the lone ranger model tonight. As it is further north then any of the other guidance. Now what makes this interesting is the follow runs that we will be posting and that is the ecm and the nogaps and the GFDL and the HWRF...

You can see that both these models clearly are more in line with the NOGAPS and ECM with taking this in across the delmarva region and then into PA they go. GFDL is over SE PA. 

Now we are very big when it comes to consistency with models and especially models where the resolution is greater then your normal standard model scheme used. Both the Nogaps and the ECM use the 4DVAR model scheme which is much more reliable then those that do not use it...

These models have been scary consistent..

You can see that this lines up pretty well with the GFDL. The ecm takes a landfalling hurricane into ocean city Md. Now lets look at the NOGAPS..

You can see that this model is being consistent from the get go with this particular system. All guidance shows a fairly large substantial storm system effecting the region.  So there you have your guidance for tonight and what it is suggesting. The only one that would have less effect on us would be the GGEM and the UKMET. .. 
HPC put this out as the rainfall for the next 5 days..

And you can almost pick out the track depiction very well on that image.  And here is the latest track as of 2 AM from the National Hurricane Center..

We find this quite interesting because it actually realizes the track that we had put out at 10:45 pm which showed the effects that can potentially be existing..

At this point and time we have no changes from the track that we had issued back at 10:45 pm yesterday evening.  This is a first call track..and we listed the impacts on there as well. The one thing we did not list is the snowfall that can potentially be falling in places like central to western PA and into WVA. Some of these locales (mainly higher locations) can get up into the feet range.

Expectations landfall should be going across anywhere from the Delmarva region into SNJ area. We are going with a blend of the ECM/Nogaps and ECM ensemble means. Once this system enters into the inland region it will begin to make a transition into an Extra tropical cyclone. 

Heavy rainfall can be expected on the order of 6-10 inches of rain
Sustained winds of 65-75 mph are quite possible with gusts to 100 MPH not out of the question. These higher gusts should be N and NE of the center. Which means for those that are in the NE quad will have a more serious implications as that is the worst side you want to be on.
Beach Erosion along with Coastal Flooding & Inland flooding.
Widespread power outages .. Wide spread downed trees. And some buildings could end up being loss (the less sturdy ones)..
We want to stress that we have are not entirely set in stone yet but we are becoming more and more concerned with the eventual outlook. 
We also want to stress that unless things change this will be approaching the area in the monday to tuesday time frame...

Please do not take this storm lightly and feel free to pass all information to your family and friends .

Again we want to stress that there is still time for changes either for the worst or the better but presently we are riding the blend of the ecm/nogaps..