Meteorological Conditions That Created Hurricane Sandy

The highest wind speed Sandy reached was 115 mph. Sandy was a category 3 hurricane, but even though Sandy was not category 5, it still caused a lot of damage. Hurricane Sandy was the second costliest hurricane in United States history. An extra tropical storm was made when sandy combined with another storm system. On October 29, the storm picked up even more strength by combining with a second storm.

Over the past few centuries, the natural disaster of hurricanes has had a huge impact on the land around us. It could cost millions, or even billions of dollars in repairing the damages done by hurricanes. These natural disasters can not only result in property damage but also many lives lost and injured victims. Hurricanes usually leave many without homes, forcing victims to find shelters or relocate to a different city or state for safety. A hurricane is a violent, tropical, cyclonic storm with sustained winds of at least 64 knots (74 miles per hour: 119 kilometers per hour) that are extremely large, powerful, and destructive. Hurricanes usually start to occur over large areas of warm water, such as the Atlantic Ocean. They generally form during the hotter months due to the fact that it gets energy from the heat off the water.

Hurricane Sandy was a tropical cyclone that devastated portions of the Caribbean, Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern United States in late October 2012. The eighteenth named storm and tenth hurricane of the 2012 Atlantic hurricane season, Sandy was the largest Atlantic hurricane on record, as measured by diameter, with winds spanning 1,100 miles. Sandy is estimated in early calculations to have caused damage of at least $20 billion. Preliminary estimates of losses that include business interruption surpass $50 billion, which, if confirmed, would make it the second-costliest Atlantic hurricane in history, behind only Hurricane Katrina.

Hurricane Sandy started off as a small storm, but quickly grew to be a large and powerful hurricane that caused major destruction to the Caribbean islands and East Coast of the United Sates of America. On October 19, 2012, a tropical depression formed in the Caribbean Sea by Venezuela. In a matter of five days, the tropical depression gained speed and became known as Hurricane Sandy. Hurricane Sandy caused high wind speeds, rain, and even snow in all East Coast states, especially New Jersey. On October 29, 2012, Hurricane Sandy made landfall in Atlantic City, New Jersey with peak wind speeds measuring just over 220 miles per hour. At this point, people who thought that they would wait the storm out realized what a

Hurricane Katrina was the storm of the century. Hurricane Sandy earned the nickname Super storm Sandy. If anyone had any doubts as to what Mother Nature is capable of, these storms are perfect examples of the fury she can dish out here on planet Earth. The sheer amount of energy those storms had is almost incomprehensible. Katrina had sustained winds of 174 mph and wave heights of over 40 feet in some places. (Knabb) Sandy had winds of 115 mph and dumped over 10 inches of rain (Blake). By all measures, they were both extremely powerful weather systems capable of taking lives.

Hurricane Sandy destroyed homes by separating families and tearing down their homes. After Hurricane Sandy happened when families came back home from wherever they went when the hurricane occurred some of them maybe most of them came home to almost nothing. Half of the towns and almost half of buildings was ruined with water damage and had to be rebuilt (Dunbar).

Nor’easters are the most common type of coastal storm that affects Connecticut. This type of coastal storm has wind speeds and surges that are lower than from hurricanes, however, they can still inflict a substantial amount of damage because they extend over broader areas and last over numerous tidal cycles. This type of coastal storm is most rampant between December and March (Gornitz et al., 2004). Two recent nor’easters that have hit Connecticut took place between October 31–November 1 of 1991 and December 11–12, 1992, and Milford was among the hardest-hit communities (floodwaters 10 to 12 feet above normal) (Gornitz et al., 2004). The nor’easter storms also caused major coastal flooding, disrupted transportation, and power outages. On the other hand, hurricanes are less frequent than nor’easters coastal storms in Connecticut and form over warm water. In recent years, Hurricane Sandy in 2012 cost Connecticut almost $400 million in damages (Frumhoff et al., 2007). Likewise, many people were unable to access electricity from CT energy suppliers and the hurricane also affected the people from the lower and middle-class communities. Most of the agricultural features in Connecticut were negatively impacted, including shellfish production. Infrastructure items such as dams and levees, transportation, and facilities and buildings were also damaged. The

Hurricane Sandy made a devastating landfall along the coast of New Jersey (McCallum, Wicklein, Reiser, Busciolano, Morrison, Verdi, Painter & Frantz, 2012). However, the origin of the hurricane was quite removed from that location. The core instigation of Hurricane Sandy originated off of the west coast of Africa in the southwestern Caribbean Sea. It started off rather weak, a category one on the Saffir-Simpson’s scale. The storm became a stronger category three as it moved towards the island of Cuba, and then weakened to a category one again as it traveled north through the Bahamas. On the journey from the Bahamas to the

As the Assistant Administrator of National Preparedness with the Federal Emergency Management Agency (F.E.M.A.) when Super Storm Sandy made landfall on October 29, 2012, in New Jersey it brought with it storm surges of more than 11 feet, killing more than 100 people (including 43 in New York of which 34 occurred in Queens and Staten Island), destroying or damaging thousands of homes, and leaving more than 8 million people without power.

For example, Hurricane Maria, that name has been retired due to its destruction, reaching wind speeds of 160 miles per hour as a Category 5 passing first through the Caribbean. Hurricane Maria then worked its way demolishing Puerto Rico with wind speeds of 150 miles per hour and pouring out about 40 inches of rain causing it to flood (AccessScience Editors, 2017).

The weather conditions played a huge part in how devastating the hurricane was. There was winds more than 150 MPH, it blew down trees, threw fences and cars, swept people off their feet, devastated houses and buildings, the wind was truly destructive. Also there was huge waves ranging anywhere from 30 to 50 feet in height! They crashed over houses and dragged them into the ocean, the swept the land clean. There was floods, some 12-17 feet deep! In total it rained hard for 4 days straight. In addition the hurricane was 500 miles wide! The eye of the storm lasted 20 minutes and was 50 miles in diameter. While it wreaked havoc on RI it also reached out to NH and VT with its

There were many names given to the deadly storm such as "Frankenstorm", "Blizzacane" and "Snor-eastercane"(Sharp, 2012). The official name given to the storm by the National Hurricane Center was "Post Tropical Cyclone Sandy." Sandy was only the second biggest storm to ever hit the Atlantic coast but it set many other records along the way. One record the storm broke was “The surge level at Battery Park topped 13.88 feet at 9:24 p.m. Monday, surpassing the 10.02 feet record water level set by Hurricane Donna in 1960.” (Sharp, 2012). The storm hit just in time to interrupt the presidential Campaign as President Barack Obama joined New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie to survey the damage and declare a state of emergency for New Jersey and New York to allow Federal money to assist in recovery efforts. Another candidate running for president “Mitt Romney canceled political rallies on Oct. 29 and 30, turning one campaign appearance into a "storm relief" event. He gave brief non-political remarks and spent less than an hour collecting hurricane relief donations and loading them into a truck” (Sharp, 2012). After Hurricane Sandy there was a much different problem that FEMA faced then what they did with Hurricane Katrina. This issue was public response to communication. Many residents that were in the mandatory evacuation

This paper gives us information about “Hurricane Sandy”. It is known as “Super storm Sandy”, off the record. It was the most disastrous hurricane of the 2012 Atlantic hurricane season along with being the second hurricane that created financial crisis in United States history. In 1953, the National Weather Service started naming the storms after women. As a matter of fact, there are six lists of names for naming storms in the Atlantic. It was the eighteenth storm in the list, tenth hurricane and second large hurricane of the year 2012. It was a Category 3 storm according to the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Scale, when it made landfall in Cuba. While it was a Category 2 storm off the coast of the Northeastern United States, the storm became the

On October 22th of 2012 Hurricane Sandy started to evolve into a tropical storm inside the Caribbean Sea. On the 23rd it then developed into a Category 1 hurricane, and on the 24th it finally hit land in Kingston Jamaica with winds up to eighty miles per hour. Until the 29th of October this storm continued on and hit Cuba, Haiti, Canada, and the Northeastern part of the United States with winds up to one hundred and fifteen miles per hour. One reason that Hurricane Sandy was so devastating are because of how large the storm was. Some people called it “Super Storm Sandy” because of its size. Another reason was because of the lives it took. It killed nearly two hundred people and affected millions of other people’s lives as well.

Hurricanes are an all too common weather event during the months of June through November. According to NASA, an average of eighty-five hurricanes occur each year. A tropical storm becomes a hurricane when winds of seventy-five miles per hour are sustained. Each named hurricane then falls into a category based upon its maximum sustained wind speed. One of the most devastating hurricanes to hit the United States was Hurricane Katrina. Hurricane Katrina formed over the south-eastern Bahamas and made landfall on the gulf coast in New Orleans, Louisiana. Katrina struck New Orleans on August 29, 2005 as a category 5 with maximum sustained winds of 175 miles per hour. Hurricane Katrina left an unprepared city in complete devastation after many warnings were ignored, along with delayed responses from government officials, and billions of dollars spent to rebuild.