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Hurricane Sandy was a Category 1 hurricane at landfall. That's pretty much the opposite of a SUPERSTORM. Much larger hurricanes have hit New England before. Fo
by AlexeiSadeski 14y ago
Hurricane Sandy was a Category 1 hurricane at landfall. That's pretty much the opposite of a SUPERSTORM.
Much larger hurricanes have hit New England before. For example, the "Great New England Hurricane of 1938" made landfall on Long Island as a Category 3 storm, killing over 600 people. The Great Atlantic Hurricane of 1944 also was Category 3, killing 390 people.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_England_Hurricane_of_1938 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_England_Hurricane_of_1938
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Atlantic_Hurricane#Impact http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Atlantic_Hurricane#Impact
Imagine if two Category 3 hurricanes impacted the North East within six years today. We'd never hear the end of how Global Warming was destroying the world. But since it happened in the early 20th Century, no one cares.
- keenerd 14y agoSandy was a big deal was because it landed in a highly overdeveloped area that should not have houses. Building your residence on a sandbar (or on a flood plane or below sea level or under an active volcano) is not exactly the brightest long term thinking. While global warming is going to make weather more unpredictable, hubris will always be the leading cause of damage.
- jlgreco 14y agoThat was the issue with Katrina. Building like that where such storms have traditionally been a century occurrence rather than a yearly occurrence is a far lesser error.
- mikeash 14y agoYou realize that hurricane category is only one measure of a storm, and not necessarily even the most important one? "Superstorm" Sandy is not called that because if its wind speed (which is all that "category" is about) but because of its size, as in physical extent.
- AlexeiSadeski 14y agoExcepting instances of extremely small storms, Category is in fact the second most important factor when determining the destructiveness of a storm. First most important is geography - where the storm hits. Size of the storm is the least important factor. A large but weak storm (such as Sandy) will always be less destructive than smaller but more intense storm - assuming that they make landfall at the same location. Sandy killed only 131 individuals, despite making landfall in an extremely densely populated area. Within the US, far smaller - but more intense - storms have killed far more people in areas far less densely populated.
- redwood 14y agoAren't you leaving out storm surge, which is just as much of a result of wind speed as it is of size... it was the surge that made Sandy at landfall truly unique.
- AlexeiSadeski 14y agoStorm surge is related to intensity much more than size.
- redwood 14y agoIf that's the case, then why did sandy surge to a record?
- dredmorbius 14y agoAlso Sandy was no longer strictly just a storm of tropical origin, but had combined with an arctic storm front, producing a hybrid storm, referred to as a "frankenstorm" initially though this was considered not a sufficiently serious term, hence the adoption of the term "superstorm". http://www.wunderground.com/blog/JeffMasters/comment.html?entrynum=2283 http://www.wunderground.com/blog/JeffMasters/comment.html?en... http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-201_162-57540360/hurricane-sandy-may-slam-into-u.s-east-coast-as-halloween-week-frankenstorm/ http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-201_162-57540360/hurricane-sandy...
- jmilloy 14y ago>Much larger hurricanes have hit New England before. I'm not sure. Sandy was 1.8 million square miles. How large was the 1938 hurricane?