>
>The "hybrid storm" aspect of this has me pretty interested, in a way. For
>many years, I've been studying the various Great Lakes "Superstorms" going
>back into the 1800's. For the most part, they follow the same pattern and
>are the result of two storm systems merging. When I saw the projections and
>that a merge was going to happen, I knew things could go horribly bad. But
>the hurricane itself didn't do anything too unexpected or out of the
>ordinary. It was the storm surge which was the result of very specific
>positional and timing factors which was the problem in that regard.
>
We see similar things occur out here in Phoenix. Our most violent storms
are more often a result of two strong storms merging. One I remember
distinctly took place about five years ago where a mass of strong thunderstorms
from the SE merged with a lesser mass from the NE. The result was several very
strong cells that marched westward across the Phoenix area. I was outdoors
helping run a small event and ended up holding things down by lying on them
with 1/2" hail driven horizontally at 80MPH hitting my back, which feels a lot
like being hit with 12ga steel shot.
>
>Specific positional and timing factors CAN NOT be blamed on climate change.
>
In the specific case of Sandy I'll disagree. The third element of that
storm, the region of high pressure that extended from Long Island to the
southern end of Greenland, was due to a large area of abnormally warm Atlantic
water, which remains even now
(http://weather.unisys.com/surface/sfc_daily.php?plot=ssa&inv=0&t=cur). Tha
was the feature that folded the jet stream and forced the storm mass into New
Jersey. Without that, Sandy would very likely have taken a traditional NNE to
NE track. There was PBS special recently that discussed this at length.
The Gulf Stream along the eastern seaboard is a combination of water from
the Gulf of Mexico and the SE to NE flow of Atlantic surface water, and the
increasing subsurface water temperature may have very serious consequences in
the form of releasing frozen methane hydrate buried in the continental shelf.
Chris
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