Just a quick word about Hurricane Sandy

Image from http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/

The storm named Sandy is no longer a hurricane. According to the National Weather Service Hurricane Center, it is now officially referred to as "Post-tropical Cyclone Sandy". It's still a large storm with a lot of precipitation but the winds are much reduced.

The worst of the new destruction from the the storm is probably past. But what destruction! The damage and loss of life in Haiti, Jamaica, Cuba and the Bahamas was terrible and in our country, the states of New Jersey and New York seem to have gotten the worst of it. We in Massachusetts were very fortunate. We were on the far edges of the storm and still got wind gusts in the 80 mph (128 kph) range but those were not sustained winds. There was some flooding but not in our area. We didn't even lose power although hundreds of thousands of homes did lose power in our state.

With all of that, I can't image what it must be like for victims of earthquakes and tornadoes who have almost no warning of the imminent danger. It amazed me how well the National Hurricane Center was able to predict the path of this storm. There was almost a week of warning that it was going to travel the path it did. And still people died and were injured. And still there was a tremendous amount of damage.That just shows the extent and power of this storm. It truly was an irresistible force. The effects of this storm will linger for a long time.