The beginning of it is Hurricane Sandy, which has already killed nearly 50 people in the Caribbean. It is huge and powerful. As it moves north and interacts with cold air, it will cease being an ordinary hurricane and grow larger: the Frankenstorm.
Here are excerpts from Weather Underground Dr. Jeff Master's blog post on this:
Sandy's diameter of tropical storm-force winds are predicted to expand from 660 miles to 760 miles by Sunday afternoon. This will increase the total amount of wind energy of the storm, keeping the storm surge threat very high. ..Sandy's large wind field will drive a damaging storm surge of 3 - 6 feet to the right of where the center makes landfall. These storm surge heights will be among the highest ever recorded along the affected coasts, and will have the potential to cause billions of dollars in damage. The latest set of 00Z (8 pm EDT) and 06Z (2 am EDT) computer model runs have come into better agreement on the timing and landfall location of Sandy. Our two top models, the ECMWF and GFS, both call for landfall between 10 pm Monday night and 4 am Tuesday morning, with the center coming ashore between Delaware and New York City.
The Washington DC area probably will receive strong winds lasting at least 12 hours, lots of rain and possible flooding. Power outages are expected throughout the DC/Virginia/Maryland area. At the moment some of the worst effects may be felt in New York City and Long Island. In New York, there is potential for sea surge flooding that could reach into the subway system, and could damage the underground power grid that powers the city.
Newsday in Long Island says:The big difference here is we have a cold front to the west that's associated with a fairly strong jet stream in the upper atmosphere," Stark said."The trough with the jet stream is going to help pull Sandy up the coast and allow the two systems to interact. Rather than having Sandy go out over the ocean, it's going to help pull it back towards the coast, and then they will join when they get here and become one system."
By the time Sandy gets close to New York, most of its energy will be coming from the jet stream, not warm southern waters, Stark said."At this point it really doesn't matter" whether the eye of Sandy strikes Long Island "because the area of fairly intense winds is going to be over a 100- to 200-kilometer [60- to 120-mile] region," Colle said. And while the storm won't be a nor'easter, it will mimic the duration and wind direction of a nor'easter.
"A hurricane can be in and out in 12 hours," Colle said. "This one we're talking perhaps longer than 24 hours where we have potential for damaging winds."
On its current track, the storm goes into New England. Masters' expects the cost of damages to total several billions of dollars.
Effects of the storms could last weeks, and that could have completely unpredictable effects on the election.
Something that is predictable: Climate crisis realists will point to this as an example of the "storms on steroids" predicted by climate scientists. And deniers will deny it. And the media will take both equally seriously.
Meanwhile, on the opposite coast, there's been a large 7.7 earthquake in the Pacific off British Columbia with several significant aftershocks. There are tsunami warnings and evacuations in Alaska and Hawaii, and a tsunami advisory here on the North Coast of California.
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