How Fujiwhara Effect Will Toss Hurricane Sandy Into U.S.

Climate Central:

A vortex is a flow pattern in a fluid that has rotation about a center: water spiraling down the bathtub drain, the swirling eddies made by a canoe paddle, or a hurricane.

Read the whole story: Climate Central

Comments

[CraigMarker]

01:33 AM on 10/29/2012

What happens to Zoos in these storms?.. or better, how do they prepare?

[smegmersmith]

07:52 PM on 10/28/2012

Don't forget to pull in the Lobster pots !

[Ed R]

05:14 PM on 10/28/2012

Thank you very much for this story. For the past several days the path of Hurricane sandy has depicted an inexplicable left turn, to which my most educated response was WTF?

This article on the Fujiwhara Effect explains the left hand turn (good that it uses pictures) so that I now known the answer to the left hand turn.

Fujiwhara Effect. Cool.

Of course, most, if not all, people think of me as a geek (I prefer intellectual), so confidently and blithly tossing the term " Fujiwhara Effect" into a conversation is unlikely to disabuse them of their misconceptions.

Fujiwhara Effect. Thank you.

[JoeBlough]

04:19 PM on 10/28/2012

This morning, Romney said a tax cut could end this thing.

[treadway123]

02:28 PM on 10/28/2012

Now u see why we need new kinds of energy! Power will be down forever an we have no new up coming energy for emergencies like this! I hope/pray for those in the path of this storm.

[Air Vice Marshal Park]

12:37 PM on 10/28/2012

Everybody who is saying that Sandy is "just a category 1" should see this simulation.

[MGLLC]

12:34 PM on 10/28/2012

I wish I understood science better, this article helps me to comprehend the story.......It sounds like it will be worse than anything we have seen before. Conflicting stories say one to two storms will join Sandy, making it far more destructive for about one third of this country. God help all those in it's path. Those of you in the area, be careful.
Perhaps it is time to wake up to the cost of burning fossel fuels in an era where we can develop and use others far less destructive to our planet. Why our greedy leaders cling to 19th century technology in the 21st century is beyond me. Don't any of them have families or people they care about?

[treadway123]

02:30 PM on 10/28/2012

Only if we would put more into research for New kinds of energy. This is my fear if Romney/Ryan gets in! Drill baby Drill will not help us in the future if Climate Change is coming.

[MGLLC]

02:37 PM on 10/28/2012

I agree completely. Fanned.

[Atwill]

07:53 PM on 10/28/2012

I agree. We should have dne that back in the 60's looked for, researched and invested in other energy , wind, solar, etc...

[TommyTstars]

08:45 PM on 10/28/2012

There really isn't a conflict between the 2 storm and the 1 storm stories, just a different perspective. An arctic storm and a large frontal storm have already joined and are confronting Sandy. Some descriptions are still references the 2 components while others have started treating it as 1 weather feature.

[Deb Bourg]

12:19 PM on 10/28/2012

WOW Looks like a Katrina event all the way up the east coast of the US. I hope they are ready for this.

[andy txn]

11:23 AM on 10/28/2012

Oh S H I T, you Yankees are in for it !

[MGLLC]

12:36 PM on 10/28/2012

It is going to affect nearly one third of this country. Some reports say it will affect folks as far south and west as TX. This ought to be a wake up call to change the ways we create and use energy.

[aristippe]

05:32 PM on 10/28/2012

This ought to be a wake up call to change the ways we create and use energy.

Can't prove they are related.

[mamacat]

10:07 AM on 10/28/2012

Very useful. Thanks!

[Tom Joad]

09:55 AM on 10/28/2012

...the animation for this article is outstanding and illustrates beautifully why there will be snow in West Virginia and rain in the northeast U.S....very interesting!...

[waverlyplace]

11:19 AM on 10/28/2012

I agree, nice animation.

btw - interesting name you chose there Tom Joad.

[ubrew12]

01:58 PM on 10/28/2012

Agreed. And I liked the simple-to-understand analogy of two vortices thrown off by a canoe paddle getting close enough to begin circling one another.

[DoctorGreeves]

08:30 AM on 10/28/2012

Outstanding moving map of the two systems. Question: Isn't the storm system that is coming from the interior of North America an anti-cyclone (spinning clockwise)? And doesn't the contact between an anti-cyclone system and a cyclonic (spinning counter-clockwise) tropical storm produce rapidly rising air and high upper-level winds that dramatically increase the effects of the combined storms as well as increasing destructive surface winds?

[mamacat]

10:37 AM on 10/28/2012

Northern Hemispheric high pressure systems spin clockwise, due to the coriolis effect. Northern Hemispheric lows spin anti-clockwise, due to same effect.

They are strongly attracted to each other because they want to cancel each other out, based on the idea of "nature abhors a vacuum."
They call if a "perfect storm" for a reason, I reckon.

[DoctorGreeves]

11:26 AM on 10/28/2012

We're on the same page, mamacat. Seems strange, but I've just been reading a book called The Children's Blizzard about the big prairie storm of 1888 that killed so many kids in the Dakotas and Nebraska who where caught in the storm on their way home from school. Many similarities with this storm we're seeing now. If you like weather, you'll really dig this book.

[Derni]

08:23 AM on 10/28/2012

we're part of nature..adapt..prepare..and hope for the best..we're part of the eco-system that we've abused ..payback sucks

[Lu Foremost]

08:32 AM on 10/28/2012

Nature is not an 'enemy'; that is a normative statement and nature is not normative.

[mdrcapitol]

11:34 AM on 10/28/2012

Unless one believes in the Gaia concept.

[waverlyplace]

11:20 AM on 10/28/2012

you're being sarcastic, right ?

[themodernleader]

05:00 PM on 10/28/2012

An organization such as our nation is like a person.  When I am excelling and producing, all the luck runs my way and for my family.  When I am slipping and sliding down other members of my family appear to fail also. Our nation when it was on top could do no wrong and everything went our way.  Benevolent foreign policy, bountiful harvests year after year, prudent domestic and foreign policy, trade surpluses and low unemployment and so on.
  Now we are bankrupted. Leadership is beholden to the financiers and predatory capitalists. Our foreign policy is aggression and mercantilism trade leveled against ourselves.  Our trade and fiscal deficits are destroying our currency. Our newly born billionaires and aristocrats conspire to keep from paying taxes.  Our governments have become corrupted.  Then nature staggers us with an unprecedented drought followed by this catastrophe hurricane that appears to bring widespread damage and suffering. If I were a faith-based religious citizen I would certainly attribute our bad fortune to the wrath of a revengeful, unforgiving God.

[anamericaninamerica]

06:23 AM on 10/28/2012

Good explanation and cool model.