Frankenstorm!!

This week, the East Coast of the US has somewhat resembled a scene from 'The Day After Tomorrow', with up to a million people ordered to evacuate their homes which lie in the path of Hurricane Sandy. The storm, which has made unusually strong landfall on the East Coast (Monday 29, 20:00 local time) has already caused widespread power outages, snowfall and flooding; the NYC subway system felt the effects of a 4m storm surge when seawater seeped into the 108-year-old tunnels; and a tanker ship was even reported washed up in a street in Staten Island!!

The storm is expected to wreak havoc over 12 states for up to 36 hours, although it has now been downgraded from hurricane status to a strong storm. Even so, Sandy is expected to cost the US up to $20bn in economic losses (surely a realistic forecast seeing as though Wall Street has been forced to close its financial markets for the past 2 days).

It's not unusual for the US to experience a category 1 hurricane at this time of year, but Sandy's super strength is spurred on by incoming winter storm systems from the North West, as well as abnormally warm sea surface temperatures in the Atlantic Ocean. Both of these elements mean that Hurricane Sandy is more powerful than an average Category 1 system and with climate change increasing global sea temperatures and atmospheric moisture, could systems like Sandy be the norm of the future?

NASA satellites tracked the formation and spread of Hurricane Sandy (NASA 27/10/12)

Keep checking in for updates and an explanation of hurricane formation which is to follow shortly...