The Upcoming Nor'easter Has Really Bad Timing

There's another storm headed our way (as we wrote last week, don't freak yet). It's going to be nowhere near as damaging as Sandy, now ranked the deadliest East Coast storm since January 1996. But this new storm comes with an added set of problems aside from simply bringing cold air and rain, heavy gusts of wind, and possible coastal flooding and even snow to the Northeast, because of all the Sandy devastation. 

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Pre-storm Monday is expected to the the coldest night of the week, with "wind chill values [dropping] into the teens and 20s across Greater New York," writes the Wall Street Journal's Eric Holthaus. "At its coldest point, temperatures will resemble those typically found in mid-December — roughly 10 degrees colder than a typical early November night." (Note: Donate your old coats today.) This new nor'easter is expected to form off the South Carolina coast on Tuesday, bringing heavy rains, and then move up to Northeast on Wednesday according to Wunderground's Dr. Jeff Masters: "A 12-hour period of strong winds of 40 - 45 mph will likely affect portions of the coast from Maryland to Massachusetts," and, as predicted by the same model that predicted Sandy, have some other ill-timed results:

Holthaus says this may mean 10-foot waves via storm surge in Atlantic City. 

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Alternatively, the storm could also move in a more easterly direction, meaning the strongest winds would be along eastern Long Island and the coast of Massachusetts instead of New Jersey or New York City. Either way we can expect rain, but probably not a ton of snow, writes Masters: "Snow is not expected in coastal area, but the Nor'easter has the potential to bring more than a foot of snow to mountain areas of New England."

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Some other details, via Holthaus, "Northwest New Jersey, the Hudson Valley, Long Island, and Connecticut should get the brunt of the Arctic blast," with New York City and coastal New Jersey getting near-freezing temperatures. Because of Sandy already compromising flood barriers, any flooding might be worse. On the plus side, we won't have full moon tides. Holthaus addes that snowfall is possible, even in the city, but not guaranteed—he gives us a 25 percent chance of snow, and by next weekend, we'll have temperatures in the balmy 60s again. Oh, weather. 

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Given the bad timing, people are already calling this weather pattern "insult to injury." As Patrick McGeehan wrote in the New York Times, "The storm, which is scheduled to hit the region on Wednesday, posed a bigger threat to the work in progress to restore about 375,000 PSE&G customers still without power, [utility president Ralph] LaRossa said.  If the storm packs winds up to 55 miles per hour as forecast, he said, it could knock down more overhead wires and halt the restoration effort." This storm comes in addition to a minor earthquake that shook northern New Jersey in the middle of the night. 

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Holthaus, who of course was out front and center warning us about Sandy the week before she got here, tweeted of this new storm, "So, *this* is happening... a nice big ol' swath of snow is showing up for NYC's NW burbs on next Wed night. #noreaster. 

According to The Weather Channel, peak impact to the Northeast will begin Wednesday and the storm's effects may last into Thursday. It's possible—probable—of course, that we're a bit on edge from last week. Well, we can't stop the weather, but at least we can be prepared.