Friday, February 8, 2013

Comparing Sandy and the Ongoing New England Blizzard

Maybe it's because I'm a weather geek, but I found two really intriguing satellite photos today. One shows Superstorm Sandy in late October, and the other shows today's blizzard gathering strength near the East Coast.
A satellite photo of Superstorm Sandy,
October, 2012 Norw rhe weather front coming in from the west.

In both cases, the vast storm systems really intensified off the East Coast. In both satellite photos, a storm coming from the west across the United States was about to be absorbed by the offshore storm, and would make each tempest that much stronger.

It's interesting that both Sandy and the current blizzard are both immense, record breaking, super strong storms, and both satellite photos are so comparable and show similar weather scenarios playing out.

Obviously, Sandy and today's blizzard are different from each other, having developed differently.  During Sandy, the builk of the destruction was in New Jersey and the New York metro area, and most of the damage was from a storm surge.  There was some snow during Sandy, particularly in West Virginia, but that wasn't the main feature of Sandy

During this storm, the main problem is snow. And the focus of the blizzard is New England, not New Jersey and New York. There is the risk of severe coastal flooding in Massachusetts, and there will be a lot of damage, but it won't be as bad as Sandy in that regard.

Blizard of '13 growing off the East Coast Friday. Similar to
Sandy note the weather front coming in from the west
I live in Vermont. During Sandy, Vermont got some effects, with some relatively minor wind damage and some power failures.

In this blizzard, we're getting a fair amount of snow, probably amounting to a foot on average. But that's not too extreme for Vermont. The snow is probably doing more good than harm because the ski resorts will surely benefit from this.

I don't know if the similarities in the two storms have any significance. But it's fascinating to see weather history, at least in part, repeat itself.

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