East Coast Braces Up for Hurricane Sandy

After a destructive episode at the Bahamas and the Caribbean, Hurricane Sandy now makes way to the East Coast where it would appear as one of the worst storms to hit in recent memory.

When NASA's Terra satellite flew over Hurricane Sandy it captured a visible image of the hurricane depicting the large extent of the storm. The image shows how Sandy has grown since the morning hours on Oct. 25 by about 120 miles in diameter.

This powerful Sandy which has been dubbed as the "Frankenstorm" is a threat to nearly one third of the United States. It is believed that Sandy will be accompanied with several tropical cyclone elements and a winter storm. These factors will intensify the hurricane making a potentially calamitous super storm.

The East Coast people are being warned of 'snor'eastercane that will show up in a form of unusual combination of steady gale-force winds, flooding, heavy rain and possibly snow.

A state of emergency has just been declared in New York and the city's emergency management situation room has been activated and those in low-lying areas may have to evacuate, including zones like Battery Park City, Coney Island, Manhattan Beach, Far Rockaway and Midland Beach and South Beach in Staten Island.

The National Weather Service is predicting sustained winds of up to 80mph for at least a 24-hour period as experts warn that the tempest has a 90 per cent chance of making landfall with the potential to wreak havoc with heavy winds, rain, flooding, and downed trees and power lines.

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo urged people to prepare storm kits, which include non-perishable food, water, cash, filled prescriptions, a battery-powered or hand-crank radio, first aid kit, flashlights and batteries.

A state emergency has been also been declared by authorities in the states of Maryland, Pennsylvania, Virginia, the US capital Washington and a coastal county in North Carolina, directing officials to speed up storm preparations.

Tropical storm warnings extend from Jupiter inlet in Florida north to North Carolina's Outer Banks.

The Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) satellite had a partial view of hurricane Sandy on Oct. 25 at 1425 UTC (10:25 a.m. EDT) after it had passed over Cuba and moved into the Bahamas and noticed a large area of intense rainfall was occurring around Sandy's center of circulation. 

Rainfall amounts as high as 250 millimeters were measured over eastern Cuba and some extreme southern areas of Hispaniola.

When any storm becomes extra-tropical, Sandy will go from a warm to cold core center and the strongest winds spread out and the storm will expand. According to the National Hurricane Center, hurricane force winds extend outward up to 35 miles (55 km) from the center and tropical storm force winds extend outward up to 275 miles (445 km). The wind field of Sandy is expected to grow in size during the next couple of days. The storm's circulation almost reaches 2,000 miles. 

Various computer models are showing different scenarios for Oct. 29's weather along the U.S. East Coast. The current forecast track from the National Hurricane Center brings Sandy in for a landfall in central New Jersey on Tuesday, Oct. 30. Regardless, it appears that Sandy may be a strong wind event for the U.S. mid-Atlantic and Northeast.