Hurricane Sandy is a Category 1 Hurricane

Wed, Oct 24th 2012, 03:49 PM

Sandy has been strengthened further Wednesday and is now a Category 1 hurricane. Sandy made landfall on the southeastern coast of Jamaica near Kingston around 3:00 p.m. EDT. Maximum sustained winds at the time of landfall were estimated to be near 80 mph. Sandy will move north of Jamaica this evening and move over eastern Cuba tonight and tomorrow.



The strongest winds and heaviest rainfall will continue to affect Jamaica, as well as eastern Cuba and Hispaniola through tonight; the worst of the weather will persist over eastern Cuba and Hispaniola into tomorrow.

Rainfall will average 6-12 inches with some higher amounts over Jamaica and Hispaniola. Life-threatening flash flooding and mudslides are risks. The wind around Sandy will also be locally damaging. On its path, the center of the storm will pass over eastern Cuba early Thursday and will be over the central Bahamas early Friday. Sandy may become extra-tropical at some point after Friday and its path is highly uncertain as well.

Most likely, it will curve to the northeast and speed up a bit Saturday, Saturday night and into Sunday. If the wind field of Sandy continues to expand to the west, tropical storm-force winds, mostly in gusts, should be felt over the southeast Florida coast Thursday night and Friday when the storm makes its closest approach. As a result, the southeast coast of Florida is currently under a tropical storm watch.

Hurricane Sandy

 

Southeastern Florida can get into some outer rain bands and may have wind gusts in the 40- to 60-mph range tomorrow night into Friday. Later in the weekend and early next week, Sandy will likely feel the effects of an approaching upper-level trough digging into the eastern U.S. and be pulled more to the north and even northwest toward the mid-Atlantic or Northeast coast. High surf and waves along its path all the way from Florida to eventually New England are likely. Exactly how close and if the center of this storm comes onshore across somewhere from Maine to the Delmarva peninsula region will obviously impact the magnitude of the flooding and surf risks.

Also in play is a full moon on Monday that will cause astronomically high tides that may enhance coastal flooding. Some of the latest computer models have trended westward with the track of Sandy later in the weekend into early next week as they eventually try to hook it back to the northwest early next week.

The computer models continue to have a wide range of potential tracks early next week anywhere from the Delmarva Peninsula to Maine. All people along the eastern coast of the United States should continue to to monitor the track of Sandy, especially this weekend and early next week. Regardless of exact track, rough and dangerous surf will be expanding northward from the east coast of Florida Friday into the next week.

Farther east, we now have Tropical Storm Tony about 1,200 miles west-southwest of the Azores. This tropical cyclone is moving east-northeastward and will remain over open waters of the central Atlantic and will not affect any land mass for the next several days.

By AccuWeather Senior Meteorologist Carl Erickson

 

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