| Sea water floods the entrance to the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel, Monday, Oct. 29, 2012, in New York. (AP Photo/ John Minchillo) |
The so-called "Superstorm," Hurricane Sandy, is shutting down the eastern seaboard with her
power and will have consequences for Northwest Ohio as well.
Dr. Ted Eckman of the geography department at Bowling Green State University, who teaches courses in
weather and atmosphere, noted that this kind of storm is "not something that happens very often.
It’s not unprecedented for a hurricane to make landfall" and combine with a cold front. Such things
happen once or twice a year on average, but it has not happened on the east coast since 1991 – the year
of the "Perfect Storm" which spawned a book documenting the incident, and which was adapted
into a film starring George Clooney and Mark Wahlberg.
"That is not completely unprecedented to have a hurricane do this," but "it is a more
powerful hurricane than previous storms that have done this, hitting a particularly vulnerable part of
the country with New York" and the coast’s large population centers.
"The areas south of where the hurricane makes landfall will get the brunt of the
precipitation," said Eckman, lasting even for a few days after the hurricane leaves. Inland
flooding along the coast will be the greatest concern. While Sandy itself is ranked as a modest Category
1 storm in terms of wind speed, her sea level pressure is ranked at a powerful Category 3 "and it’s
been out there churning in the Atlantic, turning for a while and producing larger waves than you expect
from a typical Category 1 storm."
Sandy was expected to make landfall sometime Monday night, coinciding with high tides for some of the
affected areas – exacerbated by the pull of a full moon Monday night.
| A parking lot full of yellow cabs is flooded as a result of superstorm Sandy on Tuesday, Oct. 30, 2012 in Hoboken, NJ. (AP Photo/Charles Sykes) |
Winds, Eckman said, were expected to whip New York, Boston, and Connecticut, and feet of snow were
predicted to fall in the Appalachian mountains of West Virginia.
"The experience of people in the storm will depend on where they are."
Northwest Ohio, despite being far removed from the coast, will not escape Sandy unscathed.
"We’re already feeling the effects a little bit. It’s not really the hurricane alone that’s
producing the winds," but also a pressure gradient originating in Missouri mixing with Sandy.
"And so that’s an abnormally strong pressure gradient."
Wind gusts of upwards of 50 miles an hour are expected for today, and waves on Lake Erie could reach over
10 feet.
