It presently appears that that the center of Hurricane Sandy will approach the coast and make landfall somewhere to the south of our area.
That would place us north of the storm's center and thus vulnerable to the effects of storm surge.
Storm surge is an abnormal rise of water generated by a storm, over and above the predicted astronomical tides.
Storm surge should not be confused with storm tide, which is defined as the total water level rise due to the combination of storm surge and the astronomical tide.
The astronomical high tide heights for Monday and Tuesday mornings are both 6 feet . Storm surge from from Sandy may exceed 5 feet. That would result in a storm tide of 11 or more feet at times of high tide.
To make matters worse, it appears that Sandy will be a rather slow moving storm as it approaches and makes landfall with it's 80 mph onshore winds in our area for a protracted period of time making it difficult for tidal water to flow back into the bay after the time of high tide.
That being said, the exact track of Sandy after it turns towards the coast late Sunday is still far from certain but landfall anywhere to the south of New York City will not be good news for us here in Broad Channel.
We will kep you updated.
Thank you Peter.
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