Hurricane Sandy to Hit East Coast

By Marcos Gonzalez

The National Hurricane Center has declared Sandy a hurricane with wind speeds of 80 miles per hour. People are beginning to worry about the effect the storm could have on the New England area.

Hurricane Sandy has spent the last two days between Jamaica and Cuba moving slowly towards the north. According to latest updates Hurricane Sandy is likely to come up the I-95 area, hit Boston, and go on to strike heavily populated cities.

Current weather models continue to disagree on how Sandy will interact with the jet stream and upper air pattern in the northern latitudes. Jet stream in our region can reach over 100 mph that will ultimately decide where sandy will hit.

Most model are forecasting about 5-10″ of rain from this storm. That heavy rain should reach the New England area but it won’t be certain for another day or two.

Although the size and intensity of the hurricanes tend not to be well correlated, Sandy has intensified over the past day and has grown to a diameter of about 1500 miles.

According to the National Weather Service, Sandy could make a “direct hit” on the region and with it bring “high astronomical tides…coastal flooding, downed trees and power lines.”

Boston officials are already making sure utility companies prepare for the upcoming landfall.

AccuWeather’s Alex Sosnowski says “coastal flooding, flooding rainfall, high winds, downed trees, power outages,” could be present from Boston to Washington D.C.

When Tropical Storm Irene hit the Boston areas in 2011, thousands were left without power after over 13,000 wires went down.

“We will be watching them and watching the course of the storm. People don’t want to deal with their utilities being out days at a time,” said Governor Deval Patrick.

 Image Courtesy: AP Images