Hurricane Sandy: Overview and Impacts (Invited Presentation)

Sandy was a classic late-season hurricane in the southwestern Caribbean Sea, but underwent a complex evolution and grew considerably in size while near and north of the Bahamas. Sandy moved northeastward, parallel to the coast of the southeastern United States, and reached a secondary peak intensity of 85 kt while it turned northwestward toward the mid-Atlantic states. Sandy weakened somewhat and then made landfall as a post-tropical cyclone near Brigantine, New Jersey, with 70-kt maximum sustained winds. Because of its tremendous size, however, Sandy drove a catastrophic storm surge into the New Jersey and New York coastlines. Preliminary U.S. damage estimates are around $65 billion, making Sandy the second-costliest cyclone to hit the United States since 1900. There were at least 147 direct deaths recorded across the Atlantic basin due to Sandy, with 72 of these fatalities occurring in the mid-Atlantic and northeastern United States. The meteorological evolution that led to this destructive cyclone will be discussed, along with the overall impacts.