Hurricane Sandy is the largest recorded Atlantic hurricane in diameter. It started as a tropical wave in the Caribbean on Oct. 22, and then became a tropical depression. This means that groups of thunderstorms have organized and that there is very low pressure, especially in the center of these storms. Six hours after it became a tropical depression, it was upgraded to a tropical storm, defined as a storm with winds from 39-73 mph. It has also become organized enough to start to look like the pictures of hurricanes we see on The Weather Channel. It was upgraded to a hurricane on Oct. 24, right before it hit Jamaica. It went back into the water and built up strength, upgrading to a Category 2 hurricane before striking Cuba on Oct. 25. A Category 2 hurricane, with winds from 96-110 mph, can cause a lot of damage, especially to objects and buildings that aren’t firmly rooted in the ground. It weakened to Category 1 (74-95 mph) and then became a tropical storm on Oct. 27, but quickly moved back to hurricane status. It hit the United States on Oct. 29 at around 8 p.m., slightly south of Atlantic City N.J. It was declared a post-tropical cyclone around 7 p.m., which means that the storm system became colder and connected with cold-weather fronts.
Many people have said that Hurricane Sandy may have been so strong because of climate change, although it is impossible to attribute any weather event to a long-term trend in climate. There are not enough hurricanes to statistically figure out if anything was caused by climate change. When the water is warmer, the storms get more energy, which means higher wind speed and even more rainfall because warmer air contains more moisture. Ocean temperatures were five degrees warmer than usual before the storm. This could have to do with natural variability. However, there have been a few other extreme weather events to hit the area, such as this summer’s derecho and Hurricane Irene last year.
