Good Evening…

Impacts from Sandy continue to grow…however it is still 4 days away. With that said, alot of changes to the forecast can and will happen. However, based on all the data I have been analyzing..a storm, in one form or another is on the way and it still has the potential to be major.

The forecast is like a chess game..many pieces on the table which have an effect on the end game…each piece determines how the storm will play out.  Those “pieces” refer to weather patterns along the eastern United States (jet stream)….weather features on going in the north Atlantic to name a few.  We are becoming more confident that the storm will have a hard time escaping out to sea..infact it may take a very rare track…just when it looks like it will pull away from us, it will do a left hand hook, back up in reverse, and move back towards the coast…what we call retrograding.  The move back  towards the coast can happen anywhere from the Mid Atlantic to as far north as coastal Maine….regardless, that puts our area in the impact zone. The exact spot the storm backs into, will determine the magnitude of rain wind and coastal flooding. It should be noted that tides will be running astronomically high this week .

The finer details, as far as timing, rain amounts, wind speeds, and coastal flooding will be ironed out in the coming days. While all residents should be on alert, it is more so for people that live along the shoreline. Boat owners who still have craft in the water should consider taking them out by Saturday night.

Each colored line on the map below represents a computer forecast track. Notice the cluster of lines that are pointing back towards the northeast coast of the U.S. This is the “retrograde” process we talked about in previous posts. More and more models continue to hint this. Over the next few days we will monitor the new computer data to see if they still maintain this retrograde. Based on the jet stream pattern that is is place now, I feel as though this move in reverse will be the likely outcome.

Map data courtesy of WeatherBell

The time table for our area continues to be Late Sunday Into Monday. With that being said, you should continue to monitor further forecasts and be prepared in case emergency officials recommend any action..again this being 4 days out, things can change, but at this point, odds favor a significant coastal storm late Sunday into Monday….Tony Petrarca