• After witnessing the continued decrease of involvement in the SpotterNetwork staff in serving SN members with troubleshooting issues recently, I have unilaterally decided to terminate the relationship between SpotterNetwork's support and Stormtrack. I have witnessed multiple users unable to receive support weeks after initiating help threads on the forum. I find this lack of response from SpotterNetwork officials disappointing and a failure to hold up their end of the agreement that was made years ago, before I took over management of this site. In my opinion, having Stormtrack users sit and wait for so long to receive help on SpotterNetwork issues on the Stormtrack forums reflects poorly not only on SpotterNetwork, but on Stormtrack and (by association) me as well. Since the issue has not been satisfactorily addressed, I no longer wish for the Stormtrack forum to be associated with SpotterNetwork.

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    Sincerely, Jeff D.

Chasing a historically strong extratropical storm in the northeast - cautions

Joined
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Location
St. Louis
As I'm among the many who are either heading east/north to chase Sandy or wishing we were (unfortunately I'm in the latter group), I wanted to offer my thoughts on some of the unique dangers and complications that could come from this storm for those who are there. If you are planning to intercept, please keep these in mind!

This storm is coming into a highly populated region that has not seen a wind event of this magnitude in a very long time. If this situation comes to pass as currently expected, a widespread, catastrophic tree damage/toppling event is pretty certain. That of course translates to widespread long-term (a week or longer) power outages. This is nothing like a Gulf or Florida hurricane making landfall among palm trees and forests that have seen TS-force winds in the past 5 years or less. The potential to get stranded with little to no access to basic survival resources (food and water) could be ten times worse with Sandy coming into the northeast corridor than your average southern US hurricane. Add to the fact that the large population apparently will not be evacuating means if you're not prepared, you'll be competing with 100 times more people for the very limited access to gas and food than you would on the Gulf/Florida coast.

As with any hurricane chase, I would prepare for being self-sufficient for at least 5 days minimum (food, water and fuel).

Second, the terrain in much of the region Sandy will be impacting is not your typical flat, sandy coastal plain that can drain large amounts of rainfall. Hills and mountains will make flooding a major concern, more so than most Gulf/southern Atlantic landfalling storms.

This is an entirely different animal than your average hurricane, simply because of where it's impacting. It will require some new challenges that I'm not sure our generation of chasers have encountered before on this scale.

EDIT: Mods, please correct typo in title.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
I had made arrangements to go up there and chase this thing, however, I am starting to rethink my decision, not only for the reasons listed herein, but it strikes me as somewhat irresponsible to go charging into a situation that is more or less a meteorological unknown, as well as potentially creating a extra burden on EM, either due to crisis on my part, or a matter of simply being in the way.

It is NOT my intention to create extra issue by my choice to be in the area, and it's on that basis that I will likely stay in the Midwest, and allow those closer to document this.

That said......man, I really want to see this firsthand, and document it myself!

Tim
 
Having grown up in New England have to agree that a chase of this type is a totally different animal. The shear magnitude of trees (most of which have not dropped leaves yet) means that if there is significant downed trees, it's not a matter of negotiating around them, but potentially not having any path to negotiate.

All one has to do is look back to a year ago when wrn MA, and north central CT were hit with a devastating snowstorm accompanied by plenty of wind. My folks were in the heart of the impacted area, were out of power for 8+ days, and they don't have a tree on their property that was not destroyed or damaged. The day after, and the snow had melted, it took my brother 2.5 hours to make what is normally a 10 minute drive to get to them due to trees (and some really big ones), power poles, power lines, and tree debris completely blocking roads. Three days later, while still 99% of the town is without power and many roads are still only partially passable a trip to get gas required a 75 mile round trip to get to a station that was either open, or did not have a line hours and hours long.

I remember years ago when I was a kid, a weak hurricane made landfall on Long Island and we lived up near the MA/CT border, we were blocked in our neighborhood due to downed trees for 3 days, and it nearly 5 more before the power came back.
 
Having grown up in New England have to agree that a chase of this type is a totally different animal. The shear magnitude of trees (most of which have not dropped leaves yet) means that if there is significant downed trees, it's not a matter of negotiating around them, but potentially not having any path to negotiate.

For sure! My biggest worry. It was a real mess around here in June after the derecho. Some people lost power for a week! (me a little less then 24hrs) This is going to last a lot longer.
 
Tim (or please let me know if you prefer "Timothy")....your last line speaks volumes. If you really want to fly into harm's way and document it yourself...then dammit..full speed ahead! One more guy up there isn't going to change things one whit. And as a level-headed guy who has some chasing experience....perhaps you would be an asset up there to help someone who really needs it. I don't know if you have 4x4 on the vehicle that you're planning on chasing with...but if not, I wouldn't go without it. Each spring when I chase...my chase partner and I ALWAYS rent a 4x4 SUV for the 3 weeks to a month that we're out. And if you do so...take out the max insurance. I've brought back chase vehicles all dented up with hail and broken glass, etc. and each time, the Hertz or Avis insurance that we pay @ $ 30 bucks daily for has been well worth it.
Best of luck if you DO go. Hey...I don't know how old you are, but from your photo I can see that you're like me....and not a pup anymore. Dude....go for it!! And be sure to save a little bit of energy to give us here at S.T a nice report. Godspeed and be safe.
 
Joel,

Tim, please, call me Tim, Timothy is a formality, lol.

Thanks for the compliments, but I honestly think the bigger thing that is stopping me from going is the fact that since this is more or less unprecedented, preparation would border on impossible, and I cannot pretend that going into such a situation unprepared is a sound ethos for a responsible storm chaser. With tornadic systems on the Plains, we know what to expect, what to look for, and what to prepare for, and how to prepare ourselves accordingly.

The points that Dan Robinson made above are very valid points, the largest in my mind being the flooding issue. My chase vehicle is a Dodge Ram pickup, and while 2WD, it usually can pull trees out of the way as long as they are not massive felled 100 year old trees, but it cannot ford any sort of deep water due to it's air intake design, and the fact that less than a foot of moving water will likely sweep it away. Having grown up on the Gulf Coast and going through several hurricanes, I have firsthand experience of what a good flood will do to an area. After reading Mr. Robinson's thoughts, I thought back to Tropical Storm Allison in 2001. Most of Houston, TX was not only without power, but the floodwater had inundated everything. That was one little tropical storm, albeit with interesting circumstances. The circumstances surrounding Sandy are far more severe, and far more wide-reaching in scale.

While it is true that I do have some chasing experience, please remember, I just started chasing this year, and while I have been taking classes from Tim Vasquez, online stuff at MetEd, and going on as many chases as I could this year, I also question MY readiness to chase something of this magnitude. Perhaps I'm being overly nervous about it, but I'm thinking that it may be more prudent to sit this one out, study the documentation and the case file, learn from the processes that created this storm, and be ready to be that asset for the next one.

But hey! Thanks for the encouragement, and hopefully our paths will cross on the Plains sometime. Beer's on me!

Tim
 
Here's something to think about, regarding the flooding, and a vivid memory of mine:

What Hwy 59 east of downtown Houston looked like after Allison:
Hwy59.jpg


What Hwy 59 is supposed to look like (after flooding had receded)
DSC_1390.jpg


I realize the highway is down in a sort of valley, but that's exactly what will occur up there, I'm betting.

Tim
 
Having been in my share of strong New England storms, including hurricanes, floods, Nor'easters in the 28.6"-28.7" Hg range per my barometer, and blizzards good for many days free of school, the thread brings up the basic question of what is one trying to observe out of this system. For most people interested in chasing the storm I think the answer lies near the seacoast, not in several days of gusty, gale force winds under leaden skies followed by picking your way around vegetative debris, downed wires, and flooded roads out of a rather populated area that is without electric power.

IMO find a place near the mid-NJ coast with good freeway access, like Ocean Grove/Asbury Park. You should be able to travel relatively freely up and down the coastal areas and get out of the area when you want to, and such areas will probably get their power back much quicker than inland. Good luck and good chasing!
 
I was thinking the same thing, David, I like a little further north, up towards NY harbor proper, for highest surge. The real problem with that is just the massive amount of people over there on the limitted roadways. I think the best spot for waves and surge would be on western Long Island near JFK or LGA, but given that the approaches to many of those bridges are below some of the surge projections, and that a couple million people might be running the other way, logistics are about as bad as they could possibly be. So a more reasonably option might be sandy hook, NJ, which does have a few hills (read surge-proof), and you can range along route 36 back towards the Perth/Amboy inlet, that surge models predict is ground zero given this track. Ya, I like that spot. While still a bit crowded, its a lot less population dense than some other areas.

Ya.

I like this spot

http://maps.google.com/?ll=40.406961,-74.058495&spn=0.147444,0.316544&t=p&z=12
 
As with any storms.... in my area, I never stray to far from home. I live smack in the woods and more then a little worried about trees. But I am going early on down to the water front to see what shots I can get and then pretty much play it by ear after that. Mostly going to wait to get damage shots.
 
Good day all,

Yes I was really tempted to drive up to NJ on 10/28 and intercept 10/29 but I have re-considered and wound up not going for reasons below...

1). I already got awesome surf, wave, even surge footage when the storm passed E of Florida.

2). Airports will shut down (look at LGA), so flying was not an option. It's 16 to 20 hours each way, so leave early on 10/28, hopefully be in NJ by early wee hours of morning of 10/29, sleep for an hour in the car? No thanks.

3). Roadblocks and closures, traffic, impassible roads ... This is chasing in a MAJOR metro / populated area.

4). It's NOT a hurricane. There's no eye, no eyewall. Just a huge mass of 50 MPH winds lasting for 12 hours, temps in the 50's, then winds take 3 hours to die down (if you are within 200 miles of the center as it's coming in), and no "second half".

5). You have to be near the coast / water to really see anything worthwhile.

6). It should take twice (or three times) as long to get back to FL (most just trying to get out of NY / NJ) after the storm.

7). Can't sell / share any footage because 8+ million people have the same / similar thing / footage on their cell phones.

8). No gas (but that's always like that in hurricane chasing) ... Have to bring it with me.
 
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