Strong nor’easter targets devastated Northeast

Burlington Free Press (Vermont): This is probably almost the worst possible news, but a nor’easter seems more and more likely to hit areas of the Northeast devastated by Superstorm Sandy. The upcoming storm, set to hit Wednesday and Thursday, won’t be nearly as strong as Sandy. If forecasts hold,  the size of the expected nor’easter under normal conditions would be enough to cause relatively minor coastal flooding and erosion, cut power to some people and create minor flooding in the Northeast.

The problem is, this isn’t a normal situation. Sandy wiped away sand dunes, making coastal areas more prone to a nor’easter’s storm surge than usual. It’s not like New York City’s subways will flood again, but Sandy-wrecked coastal communities all along the Northeast Coast face the risk of more flooding and more damage. Water is high in Northeast rivers, and the electrical grid won’t be put back in place by Wednesday, so the storm will create more issues, too.

The physical and psychological effects on storm victims is something to consider, too. In addition to everything else, all these people will have to deal with cold, wind and gales as they try to put their lives back together again.

The computer model that had the best forecasts for Sandy has the nor’easter stronger and closer to the coast than many other models. Let’s hope the accurate model is wrong for once. Up here in Vermont, the predicted nor’easter could give us our first real bout of winter weather. It did snow some in mid and high elevations of Vermont Friday night and Saturday, but it didn’t amount to too much...

A stranded water tanker on Staten Island, shot by Thomas Altfather Good, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported