jm1220

Wow, blinding rain and strong winds-I'd say gusts over 40. I'm near Woodside.

Rain coming down in NW Queens, wind picking up. Should be an intense 20 min or so.

The radar beam increases in height with distance from the radar. That's why the echoes look so heavy toward the edge of the radar in this case-the height of the radar beam out there catches the melting ice. Melting ice has high reflectivity and causes yellow/orange echoes.

My thoughts are generally 1.5-2.5" near the coast and city, and 0.75"-1.5" well inland. Models earlier this morning looked more impressive with the low development and heavy rain development, but 18z models are generally backing off and developing the low later. It'll be a nasty, windy and wet day regardless. I don't see much back-end rain unless the upper lows develop more than currently. The rain won't be very much behind the low unless winds far aloft can back around via closed 500/700mb lows. If those stay open, there won't be a mechanism to transport moisture around the low.

This rain here in Woodside has been intense, but nothing like Halloween 2015 in Austin, when I literally saw 5" of rain in one hour. The entire area essentially turned into rapids within a half hour.

This rain here in Woodside has been intense, but nothing like Halloween 2015 in Austin, when I literally saw 5" of rain in one hour. The entire area essentially turned into rapids within a half hour.

Muggy and warm right down to the beach today.

Where do they take the snow pack measurement? When you look at Truckee webcams there's nowhere near that on the ground.

Typical spring day here-70s in NW Queens, gorgeous and light wind. Back in Long Beach, chilly to cold and roaring onshore wind. Same thing for tomorrow, Wednesday and countless other days until probably Memorial Day or later.

The Much Perfect-er Storm.

Torrential rain and thunder in NW Queens.

Sandy was a version of the Perfect Storm 1991 that was much more powerful due to the size, still intact hurricane core up to near landfall, much lower pressure and strong interaction with the mid latitude jet which also forced a track NW into the coast. Something like this happens maybe once a century or less around our area. You really don't get a NW shifting track this far north without some interaction/phase with the jet stream and blocking high to the NE. The 1938 hurricane was very likely still a hurricane but it was also probably interacting with the jet and starting to become extra tropical. And that's what you really need for the worst case scenario in NYC.

The surge was highest in NY Harbor where the funneling effect was worst, so probably Staten Island. The wind actually seemed worst over the twin forks. Here we had gusts to 85-90 mph.

The high surge here came in significant part from the large storm pushing so much water, the worst case track, and the funneling effect in NY Harbor. If it tracked like a normal south-north storm, NYC would've seen much reduced surge. The easterly fetch was devastating.

Here the surge plus the astronomical tide was 10-11 feet. The surge component was 7-8 feet. Had the surge happened at low tide, the total storm tide would've only been 5 feet or so (surge minus the astronomical tide). Sandy's worst impact happening during the full moon and high tide was devastating. Gloria's worst hit at low tide, so much less flooding.