Wednesday's Nor'easter to have lower impact than originally feared
An early-season Nor'easter is taking shape along the coast of South Carolina today, but is now forecast to be weaker and move farther offshore than originally forecast, resulting in lower impacts to the New Jersey and New York coasts than originally feared. The storm will head north-northeast along the coast on Wednesday, intensifying into a 990 mb Nor'easter, a few hundred miles south of Long Island, NY, by Wednesday evening. The storm will likely bring wind gusts up to 50 mph and a storm surge of 2 - 3 feet along the coasts of Virginia, Maryland, New Jersey, and New York, including New York City. High waves of 10 - 20 feet will ride on top of this surge, and cause moderate beach erosion along much of the coastline damaged by Hurricane Sandy. The greatest flooding will occur during the Wednesday early afternoon high tide cycle, near 1 pm EST. Fortunately, the high tides this week will be some of the lowest of the month, since we are midway between the new moon and full moon. The Nor'easter's strongest winds will likely affect eastern Long Island and coastal Massachusetts, where wind gusts up to 60 mph will be possible Wednesday evening and Thursday. The storm's heaviest rains will stay offshore, and only Eastern Massachusetts can expect to see more than 1" of rain. The storm isn't going to tap into a large reservoir of cold, Arctic air, which will limit snowfall amounts to perhaps 1 - 2" along a swath from Northern New Jersey northeastwards, across Western Massachusetts and into Maine. While the storm will slow down recovery efforts from Hurricane Sandy, this is a pretty ordinary Nor'easter of the type the Northeast sees several times per year, and will not cause major damage.
Figure 1. Predicted wind speed for 1 pm EST Wednesday, November 7, 2012, from the 12Z (7 am EST) run of the GFS model made on Tuesday, November 6, 2012. Winds tropical storm-force (39+ mph) are predicted to affect Southern New Jersey, eastern Long Island, Rhode Island, and Massachusetts, but miss the areas hardest hit by Sandy--northern New Jersey and the New York City area.
Figure 2. Predicted storm surge at Sandy Hook, NJ for Wednesday's Nor'easter, from the experimental Extratropical Storm Surge model, run by NOAA"s Meteorological Development Laboratory. This model used winds from this morning's 6Z (1 am EDT) run of the GFS model. The peak storm surge (yellowish-brown line) is predicted to be 3.7', occurring Wednesday afternoon. High tide (green line) occurs near 1 pm Wednesday afternoon, resulting in a peak storm tide of approximately 7.8' around 1 pm Wednesday (black line). For comparison, Sandy delivered a 8.6' storm surge to Sandy Hook before their tide gauge failed, with the storm tide reaching 13.2' above MLLW (Mean Lower Low Water.)
More Sandy links
I gave a TED talk in Bermuda in October 2011, and presented a list of nine potential $100 billion weather disasters that could happen in the next 30 years. Number six on my list was a hurricane hitting New York City. “We really don’t know what climate change is going to do to hurricanes,” I said, “but it makes sense that it’ll probably make the strongest ones stronger.” If you want to see what I had to say about a hurricane hitting New York City, plus the other eight disasters I think have at least a 10% chance of happening in the next 30 years, the 18-minute video is up on the main TED site. (I've since updated my list to twelve potential $100 billion disasters, and plan on running a blog series on the topic in 2013.)
Was Sandy a hurricane at landfall? Lee Grenci, a senior lecturer and forecaster at the Department of Meteorology at Penn State, weighs in on the matter in this guest blog post. He presents evidence that Sandy was not a hurricane at landfall, and was instead a rapidly evolving hybrid storm. Lee , who is a frequent contributor to Weatherwise magazine, will be joining wunderground as a featured blogger in December, and we're looking forward to having his excellent writings!
Be sure to vote today!
Jeff Masters
Reader Comments
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There are more than 200 centers where people can go to stay warm during the day. Here's a list: Link #Noreaster
When I refreshed I couldn't see it anymore..I put in a link to the loop. Yeah~ the center looks partially exposed.
Hello.... can anyone see me????
Wind: N 12 Visibility 7.00 mi
Present weather: Light Snow Temperature 37 Dewpoint 34 Pressure: 1011.1 mb
snow due to cooling from precipitation, the "wet bulb effect" It could get heavy before it shifts to all rain...
DELAWARE-PHILADELPHIA-
INCLUDING THE CITIES OF...WILMINGTON...PENNSVILLE...GLASSBORO...
CAMDEN...CHERRY HILL...MOORESTOWN...MOUNT HOLLY...MEDIA...
PHILADELPHIA
340 AM EST WED NOV 7 2012
...WINTER STORM WARNING IN EFFECT UNTIL 6 AM EST THURSDAY...
THE NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE IN MOUNT HOLLY HAS ISSUED A WINTER
STORM WARNING FOR SNOW...WHICH IS IN EFFECT UNTIL 6 AM EST
THURSDAY. THE WINTER WEATHER ADVISORY IS NO LONGER IN EFFECT.
* ACCUMULATIONS...SNOW ACCUMULATION OF 3 TO 5 INCHES.
* TIMING...LIGHT RAIN AND SNOW WILL DEVELOP THIS MORNING...AND
BECOME STEADIER LATER THIS MORNING. AS THE PRECIPITATION FALLS
MORE HEAVILY THIS AFTERNOON...THE PRECIPITATION WILL TAKE THE
FORM OF SNOW...AND THE SNOW MAY FALL HEAVILY AT TIMES THIS
AFTERNOON INTO THIS EVENING.
* IMPACTS...AS THE PRECIPITATION FALLS MORE HEAVILY AND CHANGES TO
SNOW...ACCUMULATIONS ON COLDER SURFACES IS EXPECTED. DURING THE
HEAVIEST OF THE SNOWFALL...SECONDARY ROADS ARE EXPECTED TO
BECOME SNOW COVERED AND SLICK. MAIN ARTERIES MAY EXPERIENCE SOME
SLICK SPOTS AS WELL...MAINLY DURING THE MID TO LATE AFTERNOON.
* WINDS...NORTH 20 TO 30 MPH WITH GUSTS UP TO 50 MPH.
* VISIBILITIES...ONE QUARTER TO ONE HALF MILE AT TIMES.
* TEMPERATURES...IN THE MID 30S...BUT TEMPERATURES MAY FALL BACK
CLOSE TO THE FREEZING MARK DURING THE HEAVIEST SNOWFALL.
PRECAUTIONARY/PREPAREDNESS ACTIONS...
A WINTER STORM WARNING MEANS SIGNIFICANT AMOUNTS OF SNOW...
SLEET...AND ICE ARE EXPECTED OR OCCURRING. STRONG WINDS ARE ALSO
POSSIBLE. THIS WILL MAKE TRAVEL VERY HAZARDOUS OR IMPOSSIBLE.
&&
$$
Some already did it and died.
i don't know
i really don't know him
seen that user name sometimes
in orca's place posting
why you ask
Most impressive totals should occur after sunset, but looks like we are seeing some evaporational cooling taking place in the New Jersey area now, but totals are going to be held down due to sun angle and warm ground temperatures. Don't expect to much to accumulate on concrete surfaces until tonight.
Yep
Did you call?
I'm always around reading and learning.
One of these years when I think I have learned enough
about weather from the rest of you, I may post a
comment or two. :)
with a north wind, air with a below zero C wetbuld is advecting into the NJ precip area..these are the ingredients for a surprise few inches in spite of warm ground and time of year..but I agree, it would take a lot to have accumulating snow on hard surfaces.
Thank you, my background is behavioral science, my knowledge of weather was limited to how it related to military operations.
Grothar has taught me how to do this at least:
Me too!
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