Much of New York was plunged into darkness by the superstorm that overflowed the city's historic waterfront, flooded the financial district and subway tunnels and cut power to nearly a million people. The city had shut its mass transit system, schools, the stock exchange and Broadway and ordered hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers to leave home to get out of the way of the superstorm Sandy as it zeroed in on the nation's largest city. Officials warned the worst of the storm had not hit.
By evening, a RECORD 4 metre STORM SURGE was threatening Manhattan's southern tip, utilities darkened parts of downtown Manhattan on purpose to avoid storm damage and water started lapping over the seawall in Battery Park City, flooded rail yards and parts of the financial district. "Lower Manhattan is being covered with seawater. I am not exaggerating," said the director of operations for state of NY. "Seawater is rushing into the Battery tunnel."
Authorities also feared the surge of seawater could damage the underground electrical and communications lines in lower Manhattan that are vital to the nation's financial centre. The power has been turned off to the area to prevent shorting and fires. Storm damage was projected at $10 billion to $20 billion, meaning it could prove to be one of the costliest natural disasters in US history. (photos)
N.Y. Mayor Bloomberg - "The surge is slightly higher than what was forecasted by the HIGHEST estimate."
Latest estimates of the number of peopl without power now range between five and six million.
Washington, DC reports: So far, the DC area doesn't seem be hit too hard."
Youtube video of explosion at a power plant on the east side of Manhattan.
BBC storm updates - MTA statement about the damage wrought on the New York subway system: "Hurricane Sandy wreaked havoc on our entire transportation system, in every borough and county of the region. It has brought down trees, ripped out power and inundated tunnels, rail yards and bus depots." Seven subway tunnels under New York's East River have been flooded.
SANDY MADE LANDFALL NEAR ATLANTIC CITY NEW JERSEY AROUND 0000 UTC. THE INTENSITY OF THE POST-TROPICAL CYCLONE WAS ESTIMATED TO BE NEAR 80 KT AT LANDFALL WITH A MINIMUM PRESSURE OF 946 MB. AT LANDFALL...THE STRONGEST WINDS WERE OCCURRING OVER WATER TO THE EAST AND SOUTHEAST OF THE CENTER. HURRICANE-FORCE WINDS GUSTS HAVE BEEN REPORTED ACROSS LONG ISLAND AND THE NEW YORK METROPOLITAN AREA THIS EVENING. IN ADDITION...A SIGNIFICANT STORM SURGE HAS OCCURRED ALONG A LONG STRETCH OF THE MID-ATLANTIC AND SOUTHERN NEW ENGLAND COAST.
ALTHOUGH THE CYCLONE SHOULD STEADILY WEAKEN AS IT MOVES FURTHER INLAND, CONDITIONS WILL BE SLOW TO IMPROVE AS STRONG WINDS AND ELEVATED WATER LEVELS WILL PERSIST ALONG THE COAST FOR ANOTHER DAY OR SO. HEAVY RAINS ARE ALSO EXPECTED TO CONTINUE OVER A LARGE AREA OF THE NORTHEASTERN UNITED STATES, POSING A VERY SIGNIFICANT INLAND FLOOD RISK. [sorry about the caps, standard for NOAA bulletins]
Storm photo gallery
Joe Clark
LARGEST QUAKES -
Live Seismograms - Worldwide (update every 30 minutes)
This morning -
5.2 NEW BRITAIN REGION, P.N.G.
5.1 QUEEN CHARLOTTE ISLANDS REGION
5.7 QUEEN CHARLOTTE ISLANDS REGION
Yesterday -
10/29/12 -
5.0 NEAR N COAST OF PAPUA, INDONESIA
5.4 FLORES REGION, INDONESIA
5.2 NIAS REGION, INDONESIA
5.0 NEW IRELAND REGION, P.N.G.
5.1 QUEEN CHARLOTTE ISLANDS REGION
5.6 MOLUCCA SEA
5.2 TONGA REGION
British Columbia quake a warning to risk of oil pipeline, critics say - Critics of the Northern Gateway pipeline say the weekend's massive 7.7 earthquake just off the B.C. coast is a warning that should be heeded.
TROPICAL STORMS -
In the Atlantic -
- Post-tropical Cyclone Sandy was located about 10 mi [15 km] SW of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Still packing hurricane-force winds. Hurricane force winds extend outward up to 90 miles. Tropical-storm-force winds are expected to continue north of Chatham through much of New England .and over the lower Chesapeake Bay and south of Chincoteague to extreme northeastern North Carolina.
The center of Sandy is expected to move across Pennsylvania then move into western New York today night. Maximum sustained winds are near 75 mph [120 km/h] with higher gusts. The strongest winds are occurring over water to the east of the center. Steady weakening is forecast during the next 48 hours.
In the Indian Ocean -
- Tropical Cyclone Two was located approximately 315 nm southeast of Chennai, India. model guidance is in loose agreement but generally supports a northwestward track toward the east central coast of India.
Tropical Cyclone Two [Nilam] Hitting Sri Lanka, South India - A tropical depression over the southwestern Bay of Bengal will gain tropical cyclone status as it makes its way west to the south coast of India. Flooding rain and damaging winds will threaten parts of Sri Lanka and southeastern India.
Typhoon Son-Tinh hits Vietnam - Two people have been killed and thousands of homes damaged as Vietnam's coast was lashed by Typhoon Son-Tinh, after the storm caused deadly landslides and floods in the Philippines.
Strong winds destroyed large tracts of crops, brought down power lines and ripped the roofs off houses after Son-Tinh, which has been downgraded to a tropical depression, made landfall in the north of the country late Sunday. Two people were confirmed killed, while two others were missing. It was the biggest typhoon to hit Vietnam since the start of the storm season, with wind speeds of up to 140 kilometres per hour. The wind also felled a 180-metre television tower, the tallest in northern Vietnam, in Nam Dinh City.
Vietnam is hit by an average of eight to 10 tropical storms every year, often causing heavy material and human losses. More than 50,000 people were evacuated in preparation for the bad weather, while authorities imposed a sea ban in some areas and dozens of domestic flights were cancelled. Son Tinh left a total of 27 people dead and nine missing in the Philippines, after it tore down trees and caused flash floods and landslides. Tropical Storm Son-Tinh was moving northeast along the northern Vietnamese coast on Monday after tearing the roofs off hundreds of houses and breaching flood defenses overnight.
At least 16 deaths, 6.2 million without power in Superstorm Sandy's wake - Superstorm Sandy slammed into the New Jersey coastline with 80 mph winds Monday night and hurled an UNPRECEDENTED 13-FOOT SURGE OF SEAWATER at New York City, flooding its tunnels, subway stations and the electrical system that powers Wall Street.
Sandy kills 1 in Canada - Officials reported one woman dead in Canada, killed by an airborne sign in a car park .
Oyster Creek Nuclear Power Plant in southern New Jersey [40 miles south of Atlantic City] - A nuclear "alert" was issued because water in the pumps' intake structure passed 4.5ft, but they still operate in up to 7ft. Even if the water rises that high, the plant can turn to a backup method to cool spent fuel rods. Because the plant has been shut down for a week for scheduled maintenance, there's also much less to be cooled. And if things get really bad, they could shut off the reactor all together - although there's no reason to do so yet.
Dispatch from a Weather Channel meterologist: - History is being written as an extreme weather event continues to unfold, one which will occupy a place in the annals of weather history as one of the most extraordinary to have affected the United States. REGARDLESS OF WHAT THE OFFICIAL DESIGNATION IS NOW OR AT/AFTER LANDFALL...OR WHAT TYPE OF WARNINGS ARE ISSUED BY THE NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE AND NATIONAL HURRICANE CENTER -- PEOPLE IN THE PATH OF THIS STORM NEED TO HEED THE THREAT IT POSES WITH UTMOST URGENCY...
With Sandy having already brought severe impacts to the Caribbean Islands and a portion of the Bahamas, and severe erosion to some beaches on the east coast of Florida, it is now poised to strike the northeast United States with a combination of track, size, structure and strength that is unprecedented in the known historical record there.
Already, there have been ominous signs from its outer fringes: trees down in eastern North Carolina on Saturday, the first of countless that will be blown over or uprooted along the storm's path; and coastal flooding in Florida, North Carolina and Virginia Saturday and Sunday, these impacts occurring despite the center of circulation being so far offshore, an indication of Sandy's exceptional size and potency. Sustained tropical storm force winds were already measured at a buoy just offshore of New York City Sunday evening, 24 hours before the closest approach of the center. Early Monday morning, aircraft reconnaissance found a central pressure of 946 millibars, one of the lowest on record for a hurricane near that location, and maximum sustained winds which have increased to 85 mph.
A meteorologically mind-boggling combination of ingredients is coming together: one of the largest expanses of tropical storm (gale) force winds on record with a tropical or subtropical cyclone in the Atlantic or for that matter anywhere else in the world; a track of the center making a sharp left turn in direction of movement toward New Jersey in a way that is unprecedented in the historical database, as it gets blocked from moving out to sea by a pattern that includes an exceptionally strong ridge of high pressure aloft near Greenland; a "warm-core" tropical cyclone embedded within a larger, nor'easter-like circulation; and eventually tropical moisture and arctic air combining to produce heavy snow in interior high elevations. This is an extraordinary situation, and I am not prone to hyperbole.
That gigantic size is a crucially important aspect of this storm. The massive breadth of its strong winds will produce a much wider scope of impacts than if it were a tiny system, and some of them will extend very far inland. A cyclone with the same maximum sustained velocities (borderline tropical storm / hurricane) but with a very small diameter of tropical storm / gale force winds would not present nearly the same level of threat or expected effects. Unfortunately, that's not the case. This one's size, threat, and expected impacts are immense.
Those continue to be: very powerful, gusty winds with widespread tree damage and an extreme amount and duration of power outages; major coastal flooding from storm surge along with large battering waves on top of that and severe beach erosion; flooding from heavy rainfall; and heavy snow accumulations in the central Appalachians where a blizzard warning has been issued for some locations due to the combination of snow and wind. With strong winds blowing across the Great Lakes and pushing the water onshore, there are even lakeshore flood warnings in effect as far west as Chicago. Sandy is so large that there is even a tropical storm warning in effect in Bermuda, and the Bermuda Weather Service is forecasting wave heights outside the reef as high as 25'.
HEAVY SNOW / EXTREME COLD -
Snow and gales hit Europe, four dead, two missing - Snow and gales hit France and Switzerland over the weekend, possibly leading to the death of a homeless man in Paris, while searches continued for a missing windsurfer and a 12-year-old British boy who vanished Saturday in the south of France while cycling in a gale. His bicycle is reported to have been found but there are fears he was swept away by strong winds.
Hurricane-force winds lash France - Hurricane-force winds lashed southern France on Sunday, damaging a ferry off Marseille and leading to the disappearance of two people, including a British boy who was out cycling. Winds packing up to 130 kilometres (80 miles) an hour battered several areas in the south, including the coastal region of Herault, where a 12-year-old British boy and a windsurfer were reported missing since Saturday.
Much of the focus on Sandy has been on flooding along the east coast, but the storm has brought heavy snow - as much as 24in (70cm) in western Maryland, and 3ft in the mountains of West Virginia - with snow in the Appalachian mountains as far south as Tennessee. Roads are closed and at least one death has been reported.
SPACE WEATHER -
SUPERSTORM SANDY - Anyone who doubts the value of space exploration should watch this video of hurricane Sandy approaching the east coast of the United States on Oct. 26-28. Without weather satellites and space-age sensors, residents in the storm's path wouldn't know what was coming until the storm surge arrived. Data from satellites will help forecasters anticipate future storms even more accurately than Sandy.
NOAA's storm center
