• A Category 3 hurricane plowing through Cuba and Haiti.
• An unprecedented flood in New York City.
• Several feet of snow in North Carolina.
• School closings for windstorms in Pottstown.
Ten years ago, if you were told all four of these events were related, chances are you wouldn’t believe it. Perhaps even today you don’t believe it, as this diverse assortment of weather phenomena seems unlikely to ever occur together.
Yet everyone seems to remember their own personal story with Hurricane Sandy, which slammed into the East Coast 10 years ago this week and directly caused all four of these events in the course of one week.
Hurricane Sandy packed a punch in many more ways than one, and her story is one for the record books.
Journey from the Caribbean
While everyone remembers Superstorm Sandy’s effects on the Northeast, it is frequently forgotten that it formed thousands of miles away.
Tropical Storm Sandy was first named on Oct. 24, 2012, just a few hundred miles south of Cuba. Here, it was able to feed off of the warm water’s energy.
Sandy moved northward in the Caribbean and did something unforeseen to many meteorologists. The storm experienced rapid intensification or a deepening of pressure and an increase in wind speed in a span of only one day.
Meteorologists have when rapid intensification may occur, and this success has been seen in recent storms such as Hurricane Ian, Hurricane Ida, and Hurricane Laura.
However, in 2012, predicting rapid intensification remained a weakness for the meteorological community, and the sudden strength of the storm came to the surprise of many.
On the morning of Oct. 25, Sandy made landfall in Cuba as a major Category 3 hurricane, with sustained winds of 125 mph. It caused major damage in Cuba, including 45,000 houses losing their roofs in the province of Santiago de Cuba alone. Eleven people died from Sandy in the country, and $2 million in damages were tallied. In Haiti, 54 more deaths were blamed on the storm. Forty percent of the nation’s valuable crops were destroyed.
At this point, Sandy’s Category 3 status would be the strongest the storm ever became in terms of wind speed. However, this stage was arguably weaker than what would come in the following days.
Traveling the Atlantic
From this point forth, Hurricane Sandy grew in size exponentially even though its strength was weakened.
The storm traveled northward from Cuba through the Bahamas as a Category 1 hurricane, causing more severe wind and flood damage. In all of the Caribbean combined, 71 lives were lost.
Sandy underwent a recycle period, where it began to grow in size. Although it was over 200 miles away, Sandy caused beach erosion in Florida and inundation in the Outer Banks of North Carolina.
Forecast models then focused on where Sandy was heading, and as the days progressed, confidence grew that a rare solution would come to fruition. Sandy would make a 90-degree left turn straight into the Northeast.
This was improbable in many regards. Such a track was only possible because of a strong atmospheric ridge set up over Greenland. This basically creates a blockage where winds go against the standard west-to-east gradient, thus changing a storm’s course.
Think of the blockage and any incoming storms as opposing magnets. The “storm magnet” is repelled by the “blocking magnet,” and it must choose which direction to go around it.
In the case of Sandy, the blockage was so strong and prominent over the Atlantic Ocean that the storm had no other choice but to hook toward the United States, straight into the Northeast.
To worsen the situation, another storm had also become trapped by the block, ultimately merging with Sandy. This crossbreed’s size grew in terms of diameter, and its wind field at one point measured 1,000 miles across — still the largest in recorded Atlantic history.
Immediate and Lasting Impact
On Oct. 29, 2012, Sandy made its landfall near Atlantic City, N.J. Just beforehand, over cooler northern waters, the storm transitioned from a hurricane to a post-tropical cyclone. This change, along with its combination with another storm, led meteorologists to deem the unique system a “Superstorm.”
The statistics of such a storm are still astonishing 10 years later. A peak wind gust of 90 MPH was reported in Islip, N.Y. In the harbor of Battery Park, New York City, water levels were nearly 14 feet high.
Subways, tunnels, and streets were flooded in the Big Apple. On average, most Jersey Shore beaches shrunk by 30 to 40 feet due to waves and erosion.
Rather than statistics, the memories are the deepest scars that remain.
“Many people ended up selling their homes because the financial burden of repairing the damage was too difficult to overcome. Many were afraid it would happen again” says Katie Barlow, 19, a resident of Ocean City and current student at Ursinus College in Collegeville.
The damage is still being remembered a decade later. Many businesses today still have marks on their buildings displaying where the storm surge reached, saying the words “Sandy was here.”
Sandy’s massive circulation also helped to produce enough cold air to cause snow in the Appalachian Mountains. A massive top total of 36 inches in both West Virginia and North Carolina was tallied.
In Pennsylvania, schools and transportation were shut down. The Pottstown area received about 5 inches of rain and damaging high wind speeds, resulting in flooding of the Schuylkill River and down trees across the region.
In Berks County, one man died after a tree fell on his home. Fourteen people died in Pennsylvania in total from the storm. Compared to Hurricane Irene of the year prior, Sandy was a larger storm by size and diversity of impacts.
Final Tallies
Altogether, Sandy is the fourth-costliest hurricane in U.S. history, resulting in $82 billion in damage and causing 157 fatalities. It comes in the top five for many records in the books, from wind diameter to snow produced by a tropical system.
This “Frankenstorm” will forever be remembered for its diverse weather from the Caribbean to the Appalachian Mountains, and will certainly never be forgotten by the hardest-hit mid-Atlantic region any time soon.
Will Cano is a college freshman at Ursinus College who has a true passion for the weather. Will founded the Meteorology Club in his sophomore year at Owen J. Roberts High School. In addition, he won awards in the middle school science fair from both NASA and the American Meteorological Society with his project on atmospheric aerosols and hurricanes. He plans to major in atmospheric science with hope of becoming a meteorologist in the future.
