Sandy still offshore...continues to batter the Northeast

Hurricane Sandy has been holding her own the past several days as she inches closer and closer to the northeast coast.  Still a category one hurricane winds remain sustained at 85 mph with a current movement to the north/northwest around 20 mph.  The central pressure recorded earlier in the center of the storm was recorded at 946 mb a record tying all time low pressure.  Sandy remains over 250 miles offshore but is a very large storm.

Heavy rainfall has already been battering the northeast with water rising so far this morning between 2' to 3' from Long Island to New York to New Jersey.  Rainfall in excess of eight inches will be possible with hurricane force wind gusts expected from Atlantic City northward into Massachusetts late this afternoon and evening.  Sandy is expected to make landfall this evening in New Jersey with the strongest of the winds felt just to the north as winds could possibly gust as high as 75 mph, or higher.

Once onshore Sandy will begin to slow down significantly only prolonging the heavy rain, wind, flooding and even heavy snow for the higher elevations of Virginia, West Virgina and North Carolina.  The large magnitude of this system will cause gusty winds across the Great Lakes later Monday evening and Tuesday afternoon.  It won't be until later this week before the atmopshere begins to calm once Sandy moves north.

One of our weather watchers, Dom Castaldo, has family who live in Trenton, New Jersey and Maryland.  He contacted them over the weekend to find out what they were doing to prepare for the storm.  Here's what they said:

One (NJ) cousin said she taped the big windows on her house on Saturday. She said on Saturday the stores were running out of bread, milk, and other staples on Friday. She and her husband bought a portable electric generator. They went to Lowe’s, Wal-Mart, and other big-box stores and all were sold out. They found one at a small privately owned hardware store a few blocks from where they live. They didn’t think the store was gouging them.  They also installed a sump-pump. In some storms, wind pushes rain against one side of a house and the water travels down and enters the basement. This can happen even with houses on high ground.  My cousin said there were lines at gas stations. She said people were short tempered, arguing but not throwing punches…yet.


Another NJ cousin said she and her family weren’t doing anything special – no boarding or taping windows or over buying food. They have plenty of canned goods. She said on Sunday, they went to several supermarkets to buy water and all of the stores were sold out. Milk and bread were gone too. They had major excavation work done in their backyard this summer so they will be watching for flooding. Fortunately, they don’t have a basement but water could damage the foundation. She said schools are canceled for Monday and Tuesday. She is more worried about the snow on the backend of this storm. She said the NJ governor doesn't want people wandering around after the storm hits. 

A third cousin and his wife live on a boat (cabin cruiser) in Chesapeake Bay near Baltimore. They were going to pull the boat out of the water but decided on Sunday to move it 100 miles up a river. They double tied it at a marina and then left to ride out the storm with their daughter in Salisbury, Maryland.