Hurricane Sandy October 28th – 31st 2012
Prepared 530 PM EDT – Saturday October 27, 2012 Gary Szatkowski NOAA’s National Weather Service Philadelphia/Mt. Holly NJ Forecast Office
Purpose of Briefing
•Briefing #7 for event
•Promote situational awareness for emergency management community & partners
•Provide guidance for planning efforts
•Briefing applies to Mount Holly service area – shaded in green on map
Changes from previous briefing
•Confidence continues to increase that our region will see very severe impacts from this storm.
•Information regarding various forecast tools has been added to this briefing package.
National Weather Service
Philadelphia/Mt. Holly
Executive Summary
• Hurricane Sandy will have a major impact on our region over the next several days:
• Strong damaging sustained winds 35 to 50 mph over a prolonged period of time (24 to 48 hours), with gusts up to near hurricane strength. Strongest winds are expected south and east of the I-95 corridor.
• Extremely heavy rainfall.
• Major to record inland flooding along streams and rivers.
• Major to record coastal flooding. The full moon on October 29 just makes things worse.
• Options for the storm to miss our area are rapidly dwindling. Confidence on the storm having a major impact on our region continues to increase. The focus of efforts should be on when Sandy hits our region, not if Sandy hits our region.
• Next briefing package will be issued by Noon on Sunday, October 28th.
Current status of Hurricane Sandy
•Sandy is currently a Category I hurricane. Sandy is expected to remain at or near hurricane strength for the next two days as it transitions into an extremely intense nor’easter.
•Its forecast track poses a direct threat to our region.
•It is forecast to still have sustained winds of 70 mph with higher gusts as it approaches our region.
•This is a very dangerous scenario.
