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[cayvie]

yet another reason i moved to minnesota

[Ozle]

It must be cool seeing it all happen.....tempered by the fact it is actually happening of course

[Ozle]

The broken crane made the front page of the Metro today (London freenewspaper they give out on the tube)

[Kirian]

As some on the forums know, I just moved to DC from Detroit. As such, I've never in my life paid attention to hurricanes. Now everyone here is panicking. Don't these things just, like, hit Miami or something? I have no idea why everybody is so scared, or what's about to happen.

Amusingly, I think Detroit is getting worse weather from this than DC did, because of the conglomeration with the cold front coming down from Canadia.  Here in Toledo we have 35 mph winds and somewhat heavy rain.  Nothing like what they have in NYC, but we have a better chance of power outages than DC.

(This is because the southwest side of a hurricane (which hit NOVA) is the least powerful, and the northeast side (hitting NYC/NJ/CT) is most powerful.

Stay safe, East coasters.

[Ozle]

(This is because the southwest side of a hurricane (which hit NOVA) is the least powerful, and the northeast side (hitting NYC/NJ/CT) is most powerful.

Stay safe, East coasters.

Is this always true?
If so, whats the reason for this?

[greatexpectations]

Is this always true?
If so, whats the reason for this?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurricane#Mechanics


The rotation of the Earth causes the system to spin, an effect known as the Coriolis effect, giving it a cyclonic characteristic and affecting the trajectory of the storm.[20][21][22] In the Northern Hemisphere, where the cyclone's wind flow is counterclockwise, the fastest winds relative to the surface of the Earth occur on the eastern side of a northward-moving storm and on the northern side of a westward-moving one; the opposite occurs in the Southern Hemisphere, where the wind flow is clockwise.[23]

[werothegreat]

I'm in Virginia.  All we got was a little rain.  I bought a crate of bottled water for nothing.

[Ozle]

Is this always true?
If so, whats the reason for this?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurricane#Mechanics

I try to stay away from Wikipedia while at work or my productivity goes waaaaaaay down!

[Kirian]

Is this always true?
If so, whats the reason for this?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurricane#Mechanics

I try to stay away from Wikipedia while at work or my productivity goes waaaaaaay down!

Hehe.  I'll try to give an oversimplified explanation.  In the northern hemisphere, large storms always circulate counterclockwise due to the Coriolis effect and the low pressure--air rising up pulls air in from the surrounding areas, and that happens while the Earth turns underneath it.  You can see this just looking at satellite pictures, though this is cool too:

http://hint.fm/wind/

Fair weather systems are associated with clockwise wind movements, for the record.  See New Orleans on the map I linked there.

Now, in a North Atlantic hurricane, two factors make the northeastern part worse than the southwestern.  First, energy is being drawn from warm tropical water, which is always to the south and east of the storm.  The north and west of the storm is always over cooler water.  Due to the circulation, the southeastern and northeastern parts have higher energy--and therefore more wind/rain/etc--and the northwestern and southwestern parts have lower energy.

Second, the most destructive portion of a hurricane is often not the rain and wind, but the storm surge.  This is basically giant waves driven by wind, which pushes cubic kilometers of water onto shore.  Of course, that only happens where the wind happens to be blowing toward the shore... which is of course also on the northeast side of the eye of the storm.  So the northeastern side of the storm gets a double-whammy.  The eyewall is nastiest for wind/rain/lightning, so the absolute worst place to be is just east or just northeast of the eyewall.

Besides the actual size and intensity of the storm, this is why Katrina destroyed NOLA so thoroughly.  Katrina made landfall with the eastern eyewall just east of the city... which is exactly where the levees are.

In this case, NYC/NJ is getting hammered while, as noted, VA/DC are getting (relatively) spared.  The northeastern eyewall hit land in Jersey.

In the southern hemisphere, of course, all of this is reversed.

[jonts26]

My folks on Long Island, and actually most of the island in general has been without power since yesterday evening. Tons of downed trees and power lines. It's going to take days, maybe a week, to fully restore power. Also tons of property damage, though not for anyone I know. My brother's neighbor has a tree sticking out of his roof.

[DStu]

Is this always true?
If so, whats the reason for this?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurricane#Mechanics

I try to stay away from Wikipedia while at work or my productivity goes waaaaaaay down!

Stays away from wikipedia to keep productivity up
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browses f.ds.com