Now, I was alive for the the Perfect Storm back in October of 1991, but I was only 1 year old so my recollection of the event is not very good. As many of you may have heard, there is a possible storm that might be just like this that may impact much of the East Coast and New England in the next week. This storm would be the what is now Tropical Storm Sandy. This tropical storm could rapidly intensify as it moves up the East Coast. A few of the computer models we Meteorologists use to forecast have conjured up quite the storm. The ECMWF and Canadian models keep the storm close to shore which, if it verifies, could mean a lot of damage for the East Coast. Another model, the GFS keep the storm a little off shore which could bring a little more damage to New England. Either way, there are still a lot of variables which must come together for this next 'Perfect Storm'. Everyone has their own opinion on which model does the best with forecasting these types of tropical events, but there are a lot of players in this game to get the storm to be a home run like the Perfect Storm from 21 years ago. For instance there is a stalled cold front which will be a big player in this turn of events, there also needs to be enough energy and moisture distributed properly for this storm to happen. Depending upon where the cold air sets up there could even be snow, most likely wet snow in higher elevations and further inland in New England and the Mid-Atlantic, but again, we are still days out to know all of this for certain as it will all come down to the exact track of which the storm takes.
With that being said, what should people in the Mid-Atlantic and New England be doing right now? Well, not much since this 'storm' is still days out, if it even happens. If you live in any of the aforementioned regions I would be sure to continue to pay attention to the news and your local Meteorologist, if the storm does come to be it will bring a large amount of precipitation which could lead to flooding inland as well as coastal flooding, there will also be high winds, and if snow comes into play there could also be tree damage. It will be exciting to see how strong this storm will be and which track it will take as it moves northward up the East Coast. There will be much more known about this storm by the end of the week and this weekend, so keep an eye on the tropics this week and an eye to the sky this coming Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday!
Below is an Image of the ECMWF current model for Halloween on the left and the Canadian model for Monday on the right with GFS for Monday as well on the bottom:
