Retiring A Name

There is no question that there will never be another tropical storm named Sandy.  By now we have all seen the pictures of the absolute destruction that this hybrid storm delivered to much of the east coast.  In many areas things will never be the same.  It will take a long time to begin the process of cleaning up and rebuilding.  Unfortunately those of us who followed this storm knew it would be like no other.

I hesitate to ever use the term Perfect Storm.  There is no real classification for what makes a storm perfect.  This one was probably about as close as you are going to get where all the ingredients came together at the exact same time to cause a one in a hundred years storm.  It really was quite incredible, and I doubt we will ever see something like this again for our area.

Fortunately for this general area, we got pretty lucky.  Because the storm took almost direct aim at us, many of the worst parts of the storm moved in a different direction.  The heaviest rains stayed on the southwest side of the storm which was just to our south through most of Maryland and Virginia.  The winds stayed on the northeast side until the storm came onshore and bypassed over top of us.  The damage locally along with outages were sporadic.  In fact for me personally I usually see more problems after a strong line of thunderstorms pass.  However this was not the case for a lot of people.

I will start to sound like a broken record but we are moving into that time of season, hell I'm pretty sure Sandy already welcomed it, when storms start moving up the coast and give us the classic nor'easter.  In fact I'm not sure if they technically will say a hurricane made landfall in New Jersey since the storm transferred over.  Not that it matters.  Often they say it takes a storm to shift the pattern.  Did this one do it?  I guess we won't know yet.

However, the NAO shows a strong negative number early next week.  With that you get the idea that something could be brewing.  The model is starting to pick up something.  I will leave it at that.  The point I want to make is that the northeast takes punishment all winter long from these storms.  They are nothing like what just occurred but nonetheless the principal is the same.  Storms spin with the counterclockwise rotation that will push water inland.  Flooding is very common near the coast as is wind damage with winds upwards of hurricane strength.  The problem now is everything that was there to protect properties and land is gone.  The dunes are gone.  The layout of the shore has changed.  This is why, as cleanup continues, any sign of a coastal storm is going to be cause for concern.

It is going to be a long road to recovery for many places.  Some might never recover.  I wonder if some will ever come back.  The last thing they need is another onset of water rushing straight in.