A Repeat of Hurricane Sandy?

Science-fiction-ish for now, but the 12z Canadian shows #Erika w/ a Sandy-esque hook into NYC. http://t.co/E4x5q8m32K pic.twitter.com/vxPsvZn60L

— Eric Holthaus (@EricHolthaus) August 27, 2015

DON'T PANIC YET! Before everyone freaks out, just remember this is one run of one computer model. Is there a possibility that it would happen...yes. Is that possibility high, not at all!!! 

I found the Canadian model's forecast for current Tropical Storm Erika very interesting. As you can see in the GIF above, tweeted out by Eric Holthaus of Slate, the weather model from our neighbors to the north, takes Erika right up the coast, then a hard left into New Jersey. This is the exact path Hurricane Sandy took in 2012. Its amazing that a path like that would show up on a computer model again. 

Is it possible? Yes. Likely? Not really. Sure the pattern supports blocking to the north, preventing a storm from going out to sea like most do but will Tropical Storm Erika live through the wind shear in the Caribbean or the high mountains of Hispaniola? We'll have to wait to find out. Most models have the storm emerging into the Bahamas by the end of the weekend and giving Florida a close encounter or even a hit (Florida hasn't been hit by a hurricane in 10 years!!!) 

Right now the storm will hopefully give Puerto Rico some beneficial, drought busting rain. For everyone else, its a good time to keep an eye on it but that's it. No panicking just yet! 

Below are images from the Canadian computer model, showing Erika off the coast of North Carolina with a 932 millibar low! That would be an extremely dangerous storm. Below is also an image from the model, showing the storm off the coast of New Jersey by September 4th.  

What is Storm Surge? Fast Draw Video

The Atlantic hurricane season begins in a few days on June 1st. Although, we've already had our first named storm, Ana, here is a cool video released by the National Hurricane Center on what Storm Surge is. 

This video is called "fast draw", it's a type of video that explains a topic or issue (in this case storm surge) by showing an illustrator drawing it. They speed up the video to make it flow better. The effect is pretty cool!  This video also goes well with my storm surge article on Hubpages. 

Storm surge is an important event to understand and expect when a storm is approaching the coastline! Although, storms may be measured by their pressure and winds, it is usually the water that does the most damage and takes the most amount of lives! 

Fire Island Cut in two by Hurricane Sandy

In the past few days I've seen a few different articles on the Internet about the new inlet created by Hurricane Sandy on Fire Island New York. Thankfully it happened Ina wildlife refugee area and there were no homes destroyed at this section. If you didn't know Fire Island, like many coastal areas of the east coast is a barrier island. A barrier island is a small strip of land that parallels the main coast. It is a transitional environment that changes with constant beach erosion and storms. In fact the islands actually move depending on how currents move the sand. Basically the islands are giant sandbars that have grown to a point that they don't go underwater at high tide. With that said it is a favorite beach vacation spot up and down the east coast of America. This created a building boom which has made these island less transitional and more manmade which means they are having a more difficult time moving and transitioning with storms. The break seen below is actually a very common and normal occurrence in regards to a barrier island environment.

As much as I enjoy vacationing on barrier islands like Ocean City, MD my knowledge of their environment and the weather that contributes to the transitioning environment
Tells me that these islands are not places where people should be living!
The below link is where I found the before and after photos of the break at Fire Island.


http://www.nps.gov/fiis/naturescience/post-hurricane-sandy-breaches.htm