Hurricane Sandy

[Trumpetbdw]

Oh man Trumpet, stay safe. Are you inland at least? Parts of NJ are already flooded and the damn thing hasn't even hit yet. The city my school is in already has some water and it's on a river, not an ocean.

We're about 10 miles north of the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay, and about 1 mile west of the Delaware border. So we're inland, but not far enough where we'll experience any real diminishing of the winds/rain. It's starting to pick up now, and the latest predicted radar had the eye going directly over our house this evening. Really, the eye is a fascinating thing to watch, since it's this tiny hole where the wind and rain become perfectly calm.

The good news is that the storm is now traveling at 28 MPH as opposed to the 15 MPH it was traveling last night and this morning. That should help it clear out of here a bit quicker than expected.

[Trumpetbdw]

Irene on the top.

Dude, that is incredible. These are absolutely fascinating to look at on radar, but this thing is freaking twice the size of Irene.

[mkocs6]

More mind-blowing stuff, a map of wind-patterns in the United States. It's probably mesmerizing enough under normal circumstances, but tonight... just take a look.

[Bengals1181]

that is one of the coolest things I've seen.

[packa7x]

New York is apparently under water. I've heard water is up to the windows of the stock exchange.

Don't know if that's true, but it's certainly possible. NYC is getting smacked. I'm only a few miles from there...

[packa7x]

We're about 10 miles north of the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay, and about 1 mile west of the Delaware border. So we're inland, but not far enough where we'll experience any real diminishing of the winds/rain. It's starting to pick up now, and the latest predicted radar had the eye going directly over our house this evening. Really, the eye is a fascinating thing to watch, since it's this tiny hole where the wind and rain become perfectly calm.

The good news is that the storm is now traveling at 28 MPH as opposed to the 15 MPH it was traveling last night and this morning. That should help it clear out of here a bit quicker than expected.

I recall the eye durring Hurricane Floyd in 1998 when I was just a wee lad. I was in shock...the tree in front of my house went from touching the ground to standing straight up again and the freaking sun came out.

[packa7x]

Atlantic City is basically destroyed...Seaside Heights got smacked too...part of an amusement park fell into the ocean.

[edave]

The Seaside damage doesn't sound too bad:

A roughly 30-foot section of FunTown Amusement Pier was lost during the storm and more boards under the rides were buckling up from the force of the waves earlier this evening, Police Chief Francis Larkin said.

Belmar didn't do well and this is the reason Bradley Beach no longer has a board walk, it costs too much to rebuild every few years (Belmar installed new super dooper wood in 2009 or so):

Hurricane Sandy's powerful storm surge destroyed Belmar's boardwalk, Mayor Matt Doherty said.

"It's no longer there," Doherty said. "It's been spread out over several blocks."

Debris from the boardwalk can be found at least as far west as B Street, two blocks off Ocean Avenue, said Doherty, who reviewed the area on Monday night in the dark, as Belmar does not have power.

I was going to check the Belmar beach cam in the morning but it may not be working.

I'd mentioned water temperature earlier in the thread but didn't know this at the time:

One reason Sandy may have stayed tropical so long was the unusually warm waters of the Gulf Stream, a river of warm water that flows from the Caribbean up into the North Atlantic. It was 5 to 9 degrees warmer than normal for this time of year. And as a tropical system, Sandy fed on those warm waters and kept traveling north, Masters said. That could account for the last-minute boost in speed, too, that Sandy had as it neared shore, accelerating to 28 mph.

[mikesteelnation1]

Speed of the storm is a good thing. The less it hovers the better. Move through quickly. My rents and most of my family are just south of Philly. All was good at 8pm tonight.

They were unwilling to evacuate, so I hope they don't have any power outages. If they do, I've got plenty of room to accomidate. hopefully I can talk to them in the am...

[tubbs1518]

I wake up to go to work this morning at about 445 and it's a friggin blizzard outside. Snow in October, hm.