Hurricane Sandy could be a monster when it hits U.S. coast

Hurricane Sandy will probably grow into a “Frankenstorm” that may become the worst to hit the U.S. Northeast in 100 years if current forecasts are correct.

Sandy may combine with a second storm coming out of the Midwest to create a system that would rival the New England hurricane of 1938 in intensity, said Paul Kocin, a National Weather Service meteorologist in College Park, Maryland. The hurricane currently passing the Bahamas has killed 21 people across the Caribbean, the Associated Press reported, citing local officials.

“What we’re seeing in some of our models is a storm at an intensity that we have not seen in this part of the country in the past century,” Kocin said in a telephone interview yesterday. “We’re not trying to hype it, this is what we’re seeing in some of our models. It may come in weaker.”

The hybrid storm may strike anywhere from the Delaware- Maryland-Virginia peninsula to southern New England. The current National Hurricane Center track calls for the system to go ashore in New Jersey on Tuesday, although landfall predictions often change as storms get closer to shore.

A tropical-storm watch was issued from Savannah River northward to Oregon Inlet in North Carolina, the U.S. NHC said in an advisory. A tropical storm warning is in effect for Florida’s east coast from Ocean Reef to Flagler Beach. A storm watch means tropical storm conditions are possible within the region, a warning means tropical storm conditions are expected.

“If the storm follows the current hurricane center forecast, we are looking at over $5 billion in damage,” Chuck Watson, director of research and development at Kinetic Analysis Corp. in Silver Spring, Maryland, said yesterday.

Watson said the track may change quite a bit between now and early next week. An accurate assessment of potential damage from wind and rain probably can’t be made until late this week.

As of 5 a.m. New York time, Sandy had weakened to a Category 1 hurricane on the five-step Saffir-Simpson scale with winds of 80 mph, down from 100 mph earlier, according to the hurricane center in Miami. It was 15 miles east-southeast of Great Abaco Island in the Bahamas and 485 miles south-southeast of Charleston, S.C., and moving northwest at 13 mph.

The 1938 hurricane killed more than 500 people after crossing Long Island and battering Connecticut and Rhode Island.

"We can say even now our worst fears may be realized,” Kocin said. “If we were seeing what we’re seeing today one day out, we would really be shouting the alarms.”

Governments along the East Coast are preparing for Sandy’s impact. New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo directed state agencies to monitor the storm and Massachusetts’s Emergency Management Agency warned residents to expect the worst.

New York City has a 55 percent chance of winds of at least 39 mph by Oct. 30, according to estimates by Tropical Storm Risk, a consortium of experts on insurance, risk management and climate supported by the U.K. government.

The center’s track predicts landfall between Atlantic City and Toms River, N.J.