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October 26–30, 2012 – Hurricane Sandy passed by the state, dropping heavy rains and making storm surge. July 3–4, 2014 – Hurricane Arthur hits eastern North Carolina, in particular the Outer Banks, with 100 mph (160 km/h). May 7, 2015 – Tropical Storm Ana produced heavy rainfall and indirectly caused a fatality.
Its storm surge hit New York City on October 29, flooding streets, tunnels and subway lines and cutting power in and around the city. In addition to the strong winds (Figure 3), heavy rain (Figure 4) and coastal flooding, Sandy brought snow to the higher elevations from the Carolinas north into West Virginia and Maryland. Figure 1.
Hurricane Sandy (unofficially referred to as Superstorm Sandy) [1] [2] was an extremely large and devastating tropical cyclone which ravaged the Caribbean and the coastal Mid-Atlantic region of the United States in late October 2012. It was the largest Atlantic hurricane on record as measured by diameter, with tropical-storm-force winds ...
- Overview
- Origin and development of the hurricane
- Origin and development of the superstorm
- Damage
Superstorm Sandy, massive storm that brought significant wind and flooding damage to Jamaica, Cuba, Haiti, the Dominican Republic, The Bahamas, and the U.S. Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern states in late October 2012. Flash flooding generated by the storm’s relentless rainfall, high winds, and coastal storm surges killed 147 people and produced wides...
Hurricane Sandy began as a tropical wave (a trough of low pressure) in the warm ocean waters of the central part of the tropical North Atlantic on October 19. The system traveled westward into the Caribbean Sea during the next few days, and it was classified as a tropical depression on October 22 in the waters south of Jamaica by the National Hurricane Center (NHC) in Miami. Absorbing energy as it moved northward, the depression grew into a tropical storm, and the NHC named the system Sandy.
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On October 24, with sustained 80-mile- (about 130-km-) per-hour winds, Sandy became a category 1 hurricane in the waters just south of Jamaica. After its maximum sustained winds increased to more than 90 miles (144 km) per hour during the late evening, NHC officials reclassified the storm as a category 2 hurricane. Shortly after midnight on October 25, Sandy’s winds rose to 110 miles (177 km) per hour, and by dawn the eye had passed over eastern Jamaica and eastern Cuba.
Sandy was drawn westward by an unusual bend in the jet stream caused by the negative mode of the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO). When the NAO is in its positive mode, tropical cyclones and their remnants are caught up in the predominantly eastward flow of the jet stream and quickly thrust out over the cold water of the North Atlantic, where they dissipate. In the NAO’s negative mode, however, the jet stream bends northward over eastern North America. This change results from the presence of a strong high-pressure cell, called a blocking high, that stagnates over Greenland, and any eastward movement of storms behind the blocking high slows substantially.
As the cold air mass—whose leading edge contained a small low-pressure centre—approached the hurricane’s warmer counterclockwise wind field on October 29th, winds circulating around the low-pressure centres of the cold air mass and of Hurricane Sandy began to mix. This interaction pulled part of the cold air mass to the south of the hurricane and turned the jet steam separating the two systems westward, which subsequently drew Hurricane Sandy sharply toward the New Jersey coast. Later that day, after the cold air had wrapped around and mixed with the warm air of the hurricane, both systems merged. This development effectively transformed the hurricane into a sprawling extratropical cyclone, which was renamed Post-Tropical Cyclone Sandy by the NHC but was referred to as Superstorm Sandy by meteorologists and newscasters.
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By early 2013, the official number of deaths from Hurricane Sandy, and its later evolution into Superstorm Sandy, was 147, with 72 reported in the Caribbean region, 72 in the continental United States, 2 deaths at sea in the Atlantic, and 1 death in Canada. In the Caribbean, Hurricane Sandy was responsible for approximately 54 deaths in Haiti, 11 deaths in Cuba, 3 deaths in the Dominican Republic, 2 deaths in The Bahamas and 1 death each in Jamaica and Puerto Rico. The high winds and torrential rains that buffeted parts of southern Haiti also destroyed crops and blew away or washed away thousands of tents and temporary structures that were being used to house refugees from the Haiti earthquake of 2010. The hurricane left an estimated 200,000 people without shelter.
However, the bulk of storm-related deaths, injuries, and property damage occurred in the United States. An estimated 8.5 million people lost electrical service as a result of the storm. Several cities and towns along the Atlantic coast of New Jersey and New York were devastated, and the storm surge was made worse by high tides amplified by the full moon that occurred on October 29. Air, rail, and road transportation ground to a halt, with more than 20,000 flights canceled. In the immediate aftermath of the storm, property damage was estimated at between $30 billion and $50 billion; however, this estimate had grown to $71.4 billion by 2014.
In New York City a storm surge measuring nearly 14 feet (about 4.3 metres) combined with heavy rains to cause the Hudson River, New York Harbor, and the East River to flood the streets and tunnels of Lower Manhattan. Parts of subway lines were inundated along with the Hugh L. Carey Tunnel and the Queens-Midtown Tunnel. Flooding and power outages nearby forced the closure of the New York Stock Exchange, the longest weather-related closure of the exchange since 1888.
Along the coastline of New Jersey, damage was extensive. Part of Atlantic City’s world-famous Boardwalk was destroyed, and many of the city’s homes and businesses that were not protected by seawalls were also heavily damaged or destroyed by the storm surge. The boardwalks of Seaside Heights and Belmar were also destroyed, along with many coastal developments along New Jersey’s shoreline. During the storm, water from the Hudson River overtopped the seawall protecting Hoboken and flooded much of the city, isolating an estimated 20,000 residents in their homes.
- John P. Rafferty
Sep 22, 2021 · Oct. 24-26. On the morning of Oct. 24, Sandy strengthened into a Category 1 hurricane with maximum sustained winds of 80 mph while positioned roughly 80 miles south of Kingston, Jamaica. It made ...
Sandy continues moving northeast on a track that takes it parallel to the coasts of Georgia, South Carolina and North Carolina. But the storm’s center stays well offshore as it approaches latitude 35 degrees north off the coast of North Carolina. Still, the storm sends powerful waves onto North Carolina’s Outer Banks, washing out NC Highway 12
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Oct 29, 2013 · Sandy tied the Great Long Island Express Hurricane of 1938 as the most powerful storm ever to hit the U.S. Northeast north of Cape Hatteras, North Carolina. Storm surge pushed across parts New ...
