Monday, October 29, 2012

24 Hours Later

The hurricane has taken the sudden left hook, just as predicted.  Normally, once past Cape Hatteras, it would head northeast into the Atlantic.  But this is where the combination of storms is making it the 'Frankenstorm', because the low pressure of the system still over southern Ontario is pulling the hurricane inland and northwest.

You can watch it on the satellite as it headed inland over Delaware and New Jersey, crossing over Baltimore and Washington, and now headed into Pennsylvania.

But we get mesmerized by the centre of the storm on the image.  One forecast explained how strong winds will actually happen on the outer edge of the storm, where the pressure and temperature differences between the warm tropical air and the cold arctic air are greatest - and that's right over southern Ontario.  And the winds will be out of the north because of the counter-clockwise circulation of the air mass around the eye of the storm.  That means that the south end of Lake Huron and the south shore of Georgian Bay are at risk.

On the satellite image the storm is moving much faster than I expected.  In the next few hours it is predicted to turn suddenly northward and slightly east.  We'll see in the morning whether that has happened.

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