Skip to content
Weather
Link copied to clipboard

Sandy update

Significant storm looking more likely.

The latest computer guidance continues to steer Hurricane Sandy on a course that should spook the region's emergency managers.

A hurricane warning is in effect for the Bahamas, and a tropical-storm warning for parts of Florida.

The future of Sandy still remains very much in doubt, but the latest guidance suggests that it is quite possible that it will interact with an easterward-moving frontal system and become a dangerous hybrid up this way.

The headline on The U.S. Hydrometeorological Prediction Center's afternoon discussion reads, "Chances increasing for a major storm impacting the Midatlantic and Northeast."

The National Weather Service office in Mount Holly isn't offering a whole lot of encouragement.

In his daily update, chief meteorologist Gary Szatkowski said, "The threat to our region has increased over the past 24 hours."

The discussion in the update called to mind the horrific Ash Wednesday storm of March 1962, when five high tides coincided with the full moon.

The storm, Szatkowski said, "will be slow-moving. This worsens the impact for coastal flooding as it will affect multiple high-tide cycles."

If it happens, the storm would get cranking on Sunday, and rev it up on Monday, when the moon will be full.

Heavy rains could continue into Wednesday, and the weather service says there's a 15 percent chance that "major" river flooding -- something we haven't seen in quite awhile -- would occur.