Tag archives for Hurricane Sandy
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By Mark J. Spalding, President, The Ocean Foundation One recent weekend, I drove north from Washington, D.C., with some trepidation. It had been a beautiful October day the last time I headed to Long Beach, New York. Then, I was excited about seeing colleagues in the Surfrider International community who were gathering for their annual…
Global Temperature Rises in 2012, Climate Conditions Questioned
Posted by Tim Profeta of Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions, Duke University on January 17, 2013 Just days after the announcement that last year was the warmest in history for the continental United States, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) found global temperatures are rising too. In their separate annual analyses of surface temperatures, NASA and NOAA ranked 2012 among the 10 warmest years on record globally (NOAA showed 2012…
Heat Wave: 2012 Labeled Hottest Year on Record
Posted by Tim Profeta of Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions, Duke University on January 10, 2013 It’s official. Last year was the warmest year in history for the contiguous United States with at least 356 record high temperatures tied or broken, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). Average temperatures in 2012 were above the 20th century average by more than 3 degrees Fahrenheit. Temperatures also beat a previous record set in 1998 by a full degree,…
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A named tropical storm had dramatic effects on a group of aquatic ecosystems last year, but the affected waters were not what you might expect. They were freshwater lakes and reservoirs spread across the northeastern U.S. and southeastern Canada, some located far inland from the coast. A new study sheds light on the consequences of…
Geography in the News: Storm Surge Threats
Posted by Neal Lineback of Maps101.com and Maps.com on December 8, 2012 
Storm surges are the most damaging of all tropical storm dynamics. What causes them and why they are such threats are explained in this article, particularly with the examples of Superstorm Sandy and Hurricane Katrina.
For people living around the Great Lakes, water levels this past month have appeared much lower than many will remember. The upper Great Lakes reached near-record low water levels in October. This was most evident on Lakes Michigan and Huron, where lake levels dropped to less than two inches (4 cm) above record lows…
After Sandy: Unusual Bird Sightings
Posted by Suzan Eaton on November 12, 2012 
Thanks to Hurricane Sandy, East Coast residents have been seeing a number of unusual guests at their bird feeders during the last two weeks. The hurricane disrupted migration routes for some birds, and others simply got blown off course by the violent winds. Factor in the winter storm, the two weather events have brought together a very peculiar group of birds.
Climate Change Back on Political Radar after Sandy, Election
Posted by Tim Profeta of Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions, Duke University on November 8, 2012 In his re-election victory speech, President Barack Obama finally touched on a seldom-mentioned issue of the campaign—climate change: “We want our children to live in an America … that isn’t threatened by the destructive power of a warming planet.” Whether or not Hurricane Sandy can be attributed to climate change, the storm’s devastating flooding brought…
Posted by El Niño patterns typically bring stormy weather to the southern U.S. and drought to places like Australia. But the National Weather Service has cancelled its El Niño watch. It just fizzled out, says Mark Halpert, deputy director of the Climate Prediction Center in College Park, Maryland. This is unprecedented…
Trying To Out-Guess A Storm At Sea Is A Risky Gamble
Posted by Willie Drye on November 6, 2012 As Hurricane Sandy pounded its way up the Atlantic Coast last week, a tragic and compelling sidebar to the hurricane’s devastation was the loss of two lives and a replica of a historic wooden tall ship in the treacherous waters off the coast of North Carolina. Questions have been raised about whether Robin Walbridge, the…
After Sandy: How to Convince People to Evacuate
Posted by rshea on November 5, 2012 By Rachel Hartigan Shea Getting people out of a storm’s danger zones is a key step toward preventing loss of life. To find out what experts know about getting the word out, we spoke to Jay Baker, an associate professor of geography at Florida State University. Why do some people stay in their homes despite…
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In the aftermath of Superstorm Sandy, local food networks, including local fisheries, need your help. Last week, we spread the word about funding disaster relief efforts for fisheries and fishery-related businesses. Now, with more news from the coastal zone trickling out, there’s more that consumers can do. Shellfish Village Fishmonger NYC works with fishermen in…
Posted by By Sasha Ingber The insurance industry will be dealing with fallout from Sandy for months to come. To learn more about the storm’s impact, we spoke to Franklin Nutter, president of the Reinsurance Association of America. How much will Hurricane Sandy cost? The estimates that have been released by a disaster-modeling firm [AIR Worldwide] for…
By Sasha Ingber We’ll be interviewing various experts about the impact of Hurricane Sandy and what lies ahead. For the big picture about hurricanes, we spoke to Jim Kossin, atmospheric research scientist in the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s National Climatic Data Center. Could Hurricane Sandy be the result of climate change? It’s not fair…
A Timeline of Hurricane Sandy’s Path of Destruction
Posted by Willie Drye on November 2, 2012 Hurricane Sandy will be remembered as a raging freak of nature that became one of the most destructive storms in U.S. history. Here is a timeline from Sandy’s birth deep in the Caribbean Sea to its dissipation over Pennsylvania nine days later. October 22 A tropical depression forms in the southern Caribbean Sea off…
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As the East Coast begins to spring back to life, there is another disaster waiting to befall us in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy. As the storm bore down on the coast, farmers and fishermen scrambled to bring in one last haul before the tempest struck. Farmers were at very nearly the end of…
‘Housewife’ Joanna Krupa has Cat Fight with Sandy for Hurricane Pets
Posted by Jordan Carlton Schaul of University of Alaska on November 1, 2012 Hurricane Sandy interrupted my regular Q & A blog where celebrity animal activists, the Barbi Twins, interview their celebrity friends, which was going to be Joanna Krupa, the ‘hot’ Miami housewife. Instead, Joanna contacted the Barbi Twins since she was stuck in NY because of Hurricane Sandy, and asked how she could help hands-on with Hurricane Sandy’s…
Hurricane Resurfaces Forgotten Election Issue: Climate Change
Posted by Tim Profeta of Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions, Duke University on November 1, 2012 As Hurricane Sandy made landfall this week, bringing blizzards to West Virginia and flooding to the northeast, some debated the storm’s connection to climate change. Scientists took to Twitter to share their opinions on how warming has made Sandy worse with Texas Tech University’s Katharine Hayhoe tweeting that sea level is 7 inches higher now compared to 100 years ago and about 15 percent of the…
Over the past few days, Hurricane Sandy barreled through the Mid-Atlantic Ocean, making landfall late Monday night in New Jersey. Thoughts and well-wishes have been flowing in from all over the world – with millions in the dark and no way to travel, the NY-NJ region (the most densely populated stretch of U.S. coastline) is…
Hurricane Sandy’s Expected Impacts
Posted by Willie Drye on October 29, 2012 Here is a compilation of Hurricane Sandy’s expected impacts produced by Early Alert, an emergency management consulting service based in Islamorada, Florida. The highest storm surges are most likely to occur tonight through Tuesday morning during high tide. Major coastal flooding causing road closures, inundation and damage to structures is expected along the coasts of New…
Hurricane Sandy Will Join Other Storms That Were Rare Freaks Of Nature
Posted by Willie Drye on October 29, 2012 A phenomenal set of meteorological coincidences has turned Hurricane Sandy into an epic storm, but there have been a few other tempests that have greatly benefitted from similarly freakish conditions. And as bad as Hurricane Sandy will be, at least the technology is available to detect, monitor and track it. Earlier “storms of the…
Get Prepped: Hurricane Sandy Edition
Posted by Amy Briggs of National Geographic on October 28, 2012 
Hurricane Sandy (aka “Frankenstorm”) an enormous Category One hurricane is on its way to the eastern seaboard with the potential to be one of the most devastating storms on record. (See also: Hurricane Sandy Could Be One of Most Destructive Storms.) Sandy is a huge: As of this writing, the storm’s strongest hurricane-force winds extend…
Hurricane Sandy Could Be One of Most Destructive Storms in Many Years
Posted by Willie Drye on October 26, 2012 As Hurricane Sandy moves from the Bahamas into the Atlantic Ocean, unusual weather conditions in the upper atmosphere could turn the storm toward major U.S cities and make it one of the most destructive hurricanes to strike the U.S. East Coast in many years. Sandy is expected to stay well offshore for the next two days as…
