‘Superstorm’ heads to east coast
29 Oct 2012 7:47 AM IST
US emergency officials braced for the potentially massive impact of a so-called ‘Frankenstorm’ on Sunday as Hurricane Sandy lumbered north in the Atlantic Ocean, poised to hit the eastern seaboard with torrential rains and gale-force winds.
The superstorm was expected to make landfall somewhere between Virginia and Massachusetts early Tuesday, possibly causing chaos during the frenzied last days of campaigning before the 6 November US presidential vote.
As it churned in a northeasterly direction, the massive weather system was at category one strength, the lowest-level hurricane on the five-tiered Saffir-Simpson scale, with maximum sustained winds of 120 km per hour, the National Hurricane Center (NHC) said.
The center said that while little change in strength was anticipated for Sandy, which was now located 420 kilometers south-southeast of Cape Hatteras, North Carolina, it was ‘expected to remain a large and powerful until it crosses the coastline.’
Forecasters at the National Weather Service warned the storm would ‘result in significant impacts along coastal North Carolina’ beginning late Saturday.
But emergency officials were far more worried about what could happen farther north.
‘This is a large storm that is forecasted to impact the Mid-Atlantic and other parts of the East Coast with strong winds, coastal flooding, inland flooding, rain and snow,’ said Craig Fugate, head of the US Federal Emergency Management Agency.
Sandy’s likely collision early next week with a seasonal ‘nor’easter’ weather system was predicted to super-charge the storm, dragging it to the west, where it is expected to slam into the eastern states of Virginia, West Virginia, Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Massachusetts and even inland Ohio.
Alex Sosnowski, an expert senior meteorologist for Accuweather.com, called Sandy ‘an extremely rare and dangerous storm,’ menacing 60 million people, that ‘could lead to billions of dollars in damage.’
Taking the dire predictions to heart, residents were bracing for huge tidal surges, power outages, inland flooding and even heavy snowfall on high ground far from the coast.
The superstorm was expected to make landfall somewhere between Virginia and Massachusetts early Tuesday, possibly causing chaos during the frenzied last days of campaigning before the 6 November US presidential vote.
As it churned in a northeasterly direction, the massive weather system was at category one strength, the lowest-level hurricane on the five-tiered Saffir-Simpson scale, with maximum sustained winds of 120 km per hour, the National Hurricane Center (NHC) said.
The center said that while little change in strength was anticipated for Sandy, which was now located 420 kilometers south-southeast of Cape Hatteras, North Carolina, it was ‘expected to remain a large and powerful until it crosses the coastline.’
Forecasters at the National Weather Service warned the storm would ‘result in significant impacts along coastal North Carolina’ beginning late Saturday.
But emergency officials were far more worried about what could happen farther north.
‘This is a large storm that is forecasted to impact the Mid-Atlantic and other parts of the East Coast with strong winds, coastal flooding, inland flooding, rain and snow,’ said Craig Fugate, head of the US Federal Emergency Management Agency.
Sandy’s likely collision early next week with a seasonal ‘nor’easter’ weather system was predicted to super-charge the storm, dragging it to the west, where it is expected to slam into the eastern states of Virginia, West Virginia, Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Massachusetts and even inland Ohio.
Alex Sosnowski, an expert senior meteorologist for Accuweather.com, called Sandy ‘an extremely rare and dangerous storm,’ menacing 60 million people, that ‘could lead to billions of dollars in damage.’
Taking the dire predictions to heart, residents were bracing for huge tidal surges, power outages, inland flooding and even heavy snowfall on high ground far from the coast.
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