(Updates with hurricane-force gusts in first paragraph. For more coverage of Sandy see EXT 5 <GO>.)
Oct. 29 (Bloomberg) -- Sandy, now a powerful wintry storm, made
landfall along the coast of southern New Jersey, battering New York with
hurricane-force wind gusts.
The system came ashore near Atlantic City, New Jersey, at 8 p.m.
New York time, and by 9 p.m. the National Hurricane Center said it was
receiving reports of hurricane-force wind gusts over Long Island and the
New York metropolitan areas. Sandy is no longer a hurricane because
it’s drawing energy from temperature differences and not the ocean,
making the transition to a superstorm that may push a wall of water
ashore in the Northeast and lash the East with wind, rain and snow.
As of 9 p.m. Eastern time, Sandy was 15 miles (24 kilometers)
northwest of Atlantic City, moving west-northwest at 21 miles per hour
with top sustained winds of 80 mph. It’s forecast to turn north by
tomorrow and cross through Pennsylvania to reach New York on Oct. 31,
the center said.
Rains are soaking the mid-Atlantic states, 3 feet (0.9 meters) of
snow may fall in the Appalachians and a record- breaking storm surge may
wash over Manhattan’s Battery Park.
Sandy’s winds had stretched to about 1,100 miles from end to end
earlier today, according to the National Hurricane Center. It was the
largest tropical system on record, forecasters said. A wind gust to 79
mph was reported at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York,
and another to 90 mph was reported at Islip, New York, the center said
in the 9 p.m. Eastern time advisory.
Storm Tides
Tides along the coast will be near their peak when the storm goes
ashore, which may mean record amounts of water washing onto land,
according to Jeff Masters, co-founder of Weather Underground in Ann
Arbor, Michigan.
“These may be the highest storm tides ever recorded going back a
century,” Masters said by telephone. “We’re looking, potentially, at a
very expensive disaster for New York City.”
Sandy is so large that the storm will be felt along the East Coast from Maine to Virginia, Masters said.
“The timing certainly matters, but the location isn’t that
important because some of the strongest winds are quite a ways removed
from the center,” Masters said. “It’s a superstorm, it’s aptly named in
terms of its size, its low central pressure, the weird angle it’s
taking, the lateness of the season.”
--Editors: Paul Gordon, Robert Fenner
