WEATHER BLOG: It's All About Sandy

Today and tonight will be a little bit of a throw away with just a little rain around or two around today and and tonight. Steady rainfall will develop tonight.

Tomorrow and tomorrow night Sandy will have the heaviest impacts across the region. You can see some of the details on the maps sent out. There are almost no words that can fully describe the impacts that this storm will bring about for the area. We have up to 10 feet on the storm surge map, though that's well to the north of our area. Mainly in NorthOId. That will cause serious and devastating flooding problems under the best of conditions. The position of the high to the north and the storm moving in will lead to a long fetch with the water piling up over northern New Jersey and into Long Island Sound. The storm may not fully release until it's well inland Monday night or early Tuesday. This has remnant memories of the "Perfect Storm" scenario with the blocking high pressure to the north. The one fortunate
thing is that this storm will be allowed to move inland rather than holding off shore. Rain will lead to flooding to add to the coastal flooding. Aside from the flooding wind gusts past hurricane strength will cause serious damage throughout the region. Another aspect of the wind is the direction. The easterly wind actually provides a counter direction wind to the usual strong wind. So rain will soften the ground and the winds normally out of the west has strengthened from that direction will now blow from the east causing more damage as a result. So more trees will fall than average with this wind direction which will cause more power outages.

On Tuesday the winds will remain strong with the storm over northern Maryland. But the pressure of the storm system will rise quickly with the upper low and surface feature stacking. This is common with storms diminishing.

Finally on Wednesday this system will weaken enough to cause only a few showers in the area. Another shower is still possible on Thursday with plenty of clouds around. Then on Friday we'll finally crawl out of the fray with nicer weather.