Sandy continues to deepen

This morning's sat image shows the extent of cloud cover from Sandy moving north into southern Quebec. Sandy's center is just southeast of Cape Hatteras. The blocking high pressure over Atlantic Canada is pushing the cold front in Ontario the wrong way, and directing Sandy northwest into New Jersey.

The central pressure in Sandy is now 951mb, lower than the March 13, 1993 Superstorm that paralyzed the east coast from Georgia to Quebec. Montreal by the way had 47cm of snow in about 20 hours from that storm. Sandy at 8 am is located about 395 miles south of New York City moving northeast at 10mph. The storm has 75 mph winds and seems to be starting the transition from a tropical system into one that will become a much larger, deeper mid-latitude cyclone. What all this means for our local area is lots of wind and a little rain in southern Quebec and northern Vermont, northeast New York. Further west the wind will be accompanied by a steady at times heavy rain for Ontario. The main event locally should begin on Monday afternoon with the strongest winds, possibly exceeding 90km/h, occurring overnight into Tuesday. Winds of this strength are certainly capable of toppling trees and knocking out power. Over the mountains of the Townships and into the Green and Adirondack Mountains, winds gusts to hurricane force of 120km/h (74mph) are quite likely. Rainfall in Quebec and northern Vermont will be in the 25mm (1 inch) range and between 50-100mm (2-4 inches) in Ontario and New York by Tuesday.

The big news will come from the middle Atlantic coast and metro New York where Sandy is forecast to make landfall. Aside from strong winds and heavy rain a storm surge will push 4 to 8 feet of water into the bays and harbors around Long Island and New York City.