Joaquin

NJ.com update at 7:17 AM on Hurricane Joaquin:

Hurricane Joaquin rapidly strengthened overnight and the latest track has the storm heading for New Jersey again.

The potential track for the hurricane, which increased to a Category 3 Wednesday night, has the storm heading north arriving off the coast of the mid-Atlantic states Sunday before making landfall in the Garden State late Monday.

The National Weather Service model released at 5 a.m. says the storm will be downgraded to a tropical storm by the time it hits New Jersey with winds between 39 and 73 mph.

However, uncertainty still revolves around the storm's course, according to meteorologists.

"I'm not sure that this is the most likely track," said Rob Reale a meteorologist at WeatherWorks, noting there is a good chance Joaquin makes landfall in North Carolina late Sunday.

Models still vary on the path — it could blow out to sea before making landfall or hit anywhere from the Carolinas to Boston — yet meteorologists seem to agree that it is still too far out to be certain.

"The hurricane itself hasn't moved much overnight and the pattern isn't that different than yesterday," said Reale. "The same possibilities [from yesterday] hold true today."

Last night on the weather forums, the consensus seemed to be a Carolinas hit.

This morning on the forums, the consensus seems to be the storm goes out to sea.

With that scenario, it is still possible to have some heavy rains, winds and flooding in the New Jersey/New York area, especially along the coast.

Dunno about you, but the Sandy experience has me watching this closely.

How about you?

Just Got A Call From NYC To Work Hurricane Duty

Got home from parent teacher conferences to see a message from New York City wanting to know if I am up for hurricane shelter duty.

Uh, no - no, I'm not up for that.

But thanks for calling anyway.

I wonder if Bloomcott will make the ATR's work hurricane shelter duty next week if Sandy turns out to be the extended storm now being forecast (24-48 hours of storm)?

I could see them doing that, couldn't you?

And the storm is really starting to look like it could be bad.

Bloomberg News, not exactly a bastion of weather over-hype, is reporting the following:

Hurricane Sandy will probably grow into a “Frankenstorm” that may become the worst to hit the U.S. Northeast in 100 years if current forecasts are correct.

Sandy may combine with a second storm coming out of the Midwest to create a system that would rival the New England Hurricane of 1938 in intensity, said Paul Kocin, a National Weather Service meteorologist in College Park, Maryland.

“What we’re seeing in some of our models is a storm at an intensity that we have not seen in this part of the country in the past century,” Kocin said in a telephone interview. “We’re not trying to hype it, this is what we’re seeing in some of our models. It may come in weaker.”

 The hybrid storm may strike anywhere from the Delaware- Maryland-Virginia peninsula to southern New England. The current National Hurricane Center track calls for the system to go ashore in New Jersey on Oct. 30, although landfall predictions often change as storms get closer to shore.

...

As of 8 p.m. New York time, Sandy was located 35 miles (55 kilometers) southeast of Eleuthera Island in the Bahamas, with top winds of 100 miles per hour, a Category 2 hurricane on the five-step Saffir-Simpson scale, according to the hurricane center in Miami. It was moving north-northwest at 17 mph.

The 1938 hurricane killed more than 500 people after crossing Long Island and going on to batter Connecticut and Rhode Island.

“We can say even now our worst fears may be realized,” Kocin said. “If we were seeing what we’re seeing today one day out, we would really be shouting the alarms.”

Governments along the East Coast are preparing for Sandy’s impact. New York Governor Andrew Cuomo directed state agencies to monitor the storm and Massachusetts’s Emergency Management Agency warned residents to expect the worst.

New York City has a 55 percent chance of winds of at least 39 mph by Oct. 30, according to estimates by Tropical Storm Risk, a consortium of experts on insurance, risk management and climate supported by the U.K. government.

The center’s track predicts landfall between Atlantic City and Toms River, New Jersey.

Lots can change before Sunday, so we'll have to see what the models look like then.

But as of now, it's a hit on New Jersey, which means a lot of water, wind and rain into New York City for an extended period of time.

Expect more calls from the city looking to get volunteers from the shelters.

I wonder what calls they'll make on school closures.

Bloomberg hates to close schools.

I can conceive of a scenario where he keeps schools opened and dings teachers who don't come in for sick days even as he calls for mandatory evacuations of flood zones like Rockaway and Battery Park.

That's just the kind of guy Bloomberg is.

Frankly I hope the storm turns east and hits Bloomberg's house on Bermuda.

But just Bloomberg's house.