Forecasts fom the National Hurricane Center
Hurricane Sandy is exceptionally large, but also slow moving. Water generally is the larger damaging factor in a hurricane and slow moving storms put down a lot. What makes the event more interesting is that it will soon combine with two other storms to create a superstorm - Sandy plus a large nor'easter at sea plus a cold snowstorm coming in from the West. A very strangely shaped jetsteam will force it to be very slow and come inland probably somewhere from the mid Atlantic to New England states. A lot of coincidences that are each fairly rare.
There is the likely connection with climate change ... like a baseball on steroids...
snip
…
we look at heat waves, droughts, and flooding events. They all tend to get increased when you have this extra energy in the atmosphere. I call it being on steroids kind of for the atmosphere….
Well, normally, you have the everyday ups and downs of the weather, but if you pack a little bit of extra punch in there, it’s like a baseball hitter who’s on steroids.
You expect to see a big home run total maybe from this slugger, but if you add a little bit of extra oomph to his swing by putting him on steroids, now we can have an unprecedented season, a 70 home run season. And that’s the way I look at this year.
We had an unprecedented weather year that I don’t think would have happened unless we had had an extra bit of energy in the atmosphere due to climate change and global warming.
...
Comments