That’s the model’s forecast for Wednesday evening. Some models bring its strongest impacts ashore 12 hours earlier, Wednesday morning. (Mercifully, it appears that the storm will not move fast enough to seriously disrupt the election Tuesday.) Those orange and red zones on the map represent hurricane-force winds in the upper atmosphere. Down at the surface, the wind speeds won’t get that high — but we could potentially be looking at winds as high as 25-50+ mph along the coast, maybe with higher gusts. It depends on the exact track and intensity. (Some models now expect the system to “bomb out” and have its barometric pressure drop into the 970mb range, maybe even the high 960s. Certainly the low-to-mid 980s seems like a safe bet. The lower the pressure goes, the higher the winds can potentially get.)

And yes, there is a coastal flooding threat in New Jersey:

AccuWeather.com Meteorologists are concerned that a storm system riding up the East Coast could lead to a devastating water rise along the New Jersey coast on Tuesday Night into Wednesday. … [thanks] to a prolonged period of northeasterly, onshore winds for the New Jersey coastline.

A couple of things to keep in mind when it comes to this event. Had Hurricane Sandy not occurred earlier this week, we would be talking about a typical nor’easter with minor coastal flooding and a minor rise in water.

But, because of the destruction and erosion to the New Jersey coast that occurred, AccuWeather.com Expert Senior Meteorologist Bernie Rayno is concerned this could be a moderate to severe coastal flooding event.

The concern comes because of the fact that the protective dunes along the coast were basically wiped out from Atlantic City, N.J. on northward. This in turn, allows for any water rise to have free reign to flow into coastal communities with no barriers.

Though we aren’t at a time of astronomical high tide due to the phase of the moon, a more typical high tide is expected along the New Jersey coast after midnight Tuesday night and again Wednesday afternoon. And that could be the time when coastal flooding is at its worst.

Right now, if the track holds and the storm rides up the Eastern Seaboard and into southern New England, residents along the New Jersey coast can expect a water rise of 2-4 feet, which is on top of the normal tide cycles.

That means during high tide, Wednesday afternoon, water levels could reach upwards of 8-9 feet. While not as severe as during Hurricane Sandy, a rise like this could once again flood coastal communities with no dunes to protect it.

New York City should be in better shape because of the wind direction, which won’t pile water into New York Harbor the way Sandy did. That said, the rough weather will add insult to injury, particularly in Staten Island. Meanwhile, along the northern coast of Long Island and southern Connecticut, “minor coastal flooding” is possible. But the big coastal flooding concern will be for Sandy-devastated New Jersey.

Here is a National Weather Service graphic summarizing the storm’s potential impacts:

The Weather Channel — which may name the system “Winter Storm Athena,” although they haven’t done so yet — adds:

If the low tracks close to the coast as our current forecast maps show, we will be dealing with a very windy, rainy and cold Wednesday into Thursday along the Northeast I-95 corridor. The strength and duration of the winds would be dictated by the exact track and strength of the low. The winds will kick up high surf along the coast that could lead to additional coastal flooding.

Across the interior Northeast or New England, there may be enough cold air for snow to go along with the windy conditions, particularly from the Poconos to the Catskills, Upstate New York and interior New England.

The snow zone could move further east, perhaps even impacting the major coastal cities, if the storm’s center is a bit further offshore, as some models suggest. On the bright side, that could lessen the wind/surge threat a bit, though regardless, this isn’t going to be pleasant for folks in its path, particularly those without power and whatnot.

Dr. Jeff Masters notes:

The storm is still four days away, and four-day forecasts of the path and intensity of Nor’easters usually have large errors. Nevertheless, residents and relief workers in the region hit by Sandy should anticipate the possibility of the arrival on Wednesday of a moderate-strength Nor’easter with heavy rain, accompanied by high winds capable of driving a 1-2 foot storm surge with battering waves. The surge and waves will potentially cause moderate to severe erosion on New Jersey coast, where Hurricane Sandy pulverized the protective beach dunes.

Joe Bastardi, on the premium WeatherBell site, calls the nor’easter a monster in its own right:

The Saga of Sandy continues as we are left with an exposed population in coastal areas with a powerful storm in its own right coming. Let me be clear, this is not tropical but will develop a warm core within the cold pool it’s embedded in … The development of the warm core in a colder pool means that there will be an area of high winds focused fairly close to the center with an eye-like structure likely off the mid atlantic coast by Wednesday night and Thursday morning. This is important since it means not only will there be fetch induced water backup but even a bit of the process that produces a “surge”…higher winds closer to the center rather than well removed.

Connecticut meteorologist Geoff Fox points out:

Unlike Hurricane Sandy there’s nothing really unusual about this storm. Weather patterns have begun their shift toward winter. This is a type of storm New England and the Northeast get often.

It just seems unfair it’s coming now!

Indeed.

The storm, which could be (unofficially) named “Athena” pursuant to The Weather Channel’s decision to name winter storms this year, will be nowhere near as intense or damaging as Sandy, but it could bring rain, snow and wind — perhaps as high as 40 mph — to an area that surely doesn’t need any more weather-related misery right now. Already it’s getting colder, making the widespread power outages more and more of a problem. They don’t need snow and wind, too.

As the National Weather Service’s Hydrometeorological Prediction Center puts it:

THE GLOBAL NUMERICAL MODELS SUGGEST NO REST FOR THE WEARY ACROSS THE UNITED STATES, WITH…THE POSSIBILITY OF ANOTHER SLOW-MOVING CYCLONE ALONG THE MID ATLANTIC AND NORTHEAST COASTS. THE EAST COAST SYSTEM WOULD BE A MORE TYPICAL NOR’EASTER, WITH THE SAME SET OF [COMPUTER MOEDL] GUIDANCE SUPPORTING ITS GENESIS AT DAYS 5 AND 6 AS WITH THIS WEEK’S SPRAWLING HYBRID STORM… ANY SYSTEM THAT PRODUCES SIGNIFICANT WIND AND
PRECIPITATION IN THE MID ATLANTIC AND NORTHEAST IS OF NOTE IN LIGHT OF THE CONTINUED RECOVERY FROM SANDY AND ITS POST-TROPICAL TRANSFORMATION.

The Wall Street Journal’s Weather Journal has more.

Meanwhile, the death toll from Hurricane Sandy continues to rise. It’s now at 98 in the U.S., with 40 of those in New York City. Hardest hit, it’s increasingly clear, is the “forgotten borough” of Staten Island where — even as the city’s failed mayor preps for an unnecessary marathon that should obviously be postponed — the situation remains dire:

The residents of Staten Island are pleading for help from elected officials, begging for gasoline, food and clothing three days after Sandy slammed the New York City borough.

“We’re going to die! We’re going to freeze! We got 90-year-old people!” Donna Solli told visiting officials. “You don’t understand. You gotta get your trucks down here on the corner now. It’s been three days!” …

One of the devastated neighborhoods was overwhelmed by a violent surge of water. Residents described a super-sized wave as high as 20 feet, with water rushing into the streets like rapids. …

Staten Island officials sounded increasingly desperate today, asking when supplies will arrive. They blasted the Red Cross for not being there when it counted.

“This is America, not a third world nation. We need food, we need clothing,” Staten Island Borough President Jim Molinaro said today. …

Molinaro urged New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg Wednesday to cancel Sunday’s New York City Marathon. The race’s staging area is on Staten Island and Molinaro said it would be “crazy, asinine,” to have the race after what has happened.

“My God. What we have here is terrible, a disaster,” Molinaro said Wednesday. “If they want to race, let them race with themselves. This is no time for a parade. A marathon is a parade. Now is the time to put your shoulder to the wheel. If they want to prepare for something, let them prepare for the election, not a marathon.”

“Do you realize how many police officers you need for a marathon?” he asked. “There are people looting stores on Midland Avenue. There is looting taking place in the homes on the South Shore that were destroyed. That is where we need the police.”

More here on the situation in Staten Island. Money quote: “We are in a post-apocalyptic state. … Looting, oil spills, floods, the whole city is underwater and there is no help on its way.” There’s also a reference to “hundreds still missing,” which is entirely unconfirmed, though it matches my fear that “the eventual death toll may shock some people.” I’m not sure we really have any idea yet how bad it is.

On the subject of looting, and human suffering in general (particularly in places like Staten Island and Hoboken, where the flood isn’t over yet) it’s always hard to separate the truth from the Fog of War — remember New Orleans in that regard — but a series of tweets last night by National Review‘s John Podhoretz expresses my sense of foreboding as well:

No question the Sandy story is taking a turn. Especially here in NY.

— John Podhoretz (@jpodhoretz) November 2, 2012

[More after the jump.]

No time for a full storm aftermath update right now, but as I read this article from tomorrow’s New York Times about the devastation in New Jersey, I am struck by a parallel to Hurricane Katrina. New York is playing the role of New Orleans — the big city hogging all the attention (and, yes, this blog is as guilty as anyone) — while New Jersey plays the role of Mississippi, as the state where Sandy’s greatest impacts were felt, and the most severe destruction directly caused by the storm occurred. Excerpt from the Times:

Though the storm raged up the East Coast, it has become increasingly apparent that New Jersey took the brunt of it. Officials estimated that the state suffered many billions of dollars in property damage. About a quarter of the state’s population — more than two million people — remained without power on Wednesday, and more than 6,000 were still in shelters, state emergency officials said.

At least eight people died, and officials expressed deep concerns that the toll would rise as more searches of homes were carried out. …

One of the most pressing crises was unfolding here in Hoboken, a city of 50,000 that is directly across the Hudson River from Manhattan.

“This is flooding like we’ve never seen,” said Mayor Dawn Zimmer of Hoboken, where National Guard troops on Wednesday were trying to rescue thousands of residents trapped by sewage-laced floodwaters.

“It filled the city like a bathtub,” she said.

There’s a lot of talk about power outages and transportation inconveniences, the latter mostly in NYC, and those are certainly important angles to this story. But let’s not forget that many lives have been lost — now 74 and counting nationwide — and more remain at stake (in New Jersey but also in Lower Manhattan and other places). That human toll has still got to be the headline nationally — not when the subway will be back online.

Speaking of which, I have some concerns about Staten Island, itself overshadowed within New York City by coverage of the other boroughs. Yet Staten Island is the borough with the highest proportion of low-lying “Zone A” territory, and I’m picking up a vague sense, bubbling up from Twitter, that the eventual death toll there may shock some people. (I have the same concern about New Jersey.) I don’t know this to be true, and I certainly hope I’m wrong — and also, I am cognizant of the need to take unconfirmed reports about possible death tolls with heapings of salt, recalling those “10,000 body bags” after Katrina. Still, I’m worried. I fear we don’t really have a good handle on Sandy’s human toll yet, and I worry that it may be worse than most of us suspect.

With all the planning, and all the predictions, planning big was not big enough. Superstorm Sandy went bigger [than previous storms] — a surge of 14 feet.

“Nobody predicted it would be that high,” said ConEd spokesman Allan Drury.

[FRIDAY UPDATE: Mayor Bloomberg has now repeated the same claim, asserting that "no one expected" a surge as high as what occurred.]

THIS IS UTTERLY, COMPLETELY AND DEMONSTRABLY FALSE. The Associated Press must issue a correction and retraction immediately (as basically the entire story is premised on the falsehood), and the journalistic repetition of this factually incorrect statement needs to stop NOW.

First of all, Sandy’s “surge” in NYC was not 14 feet; it was 9 feet. 14 feet was level of surge + tide. More on that in a moment.

Secondly, the storm surge that occurred — 9 feet — was predicted, well in advance, by the computer models and the National Weather Service and countless others. In fact, you need look no further than this blog’s wee-hours Saturday morning update, titled in part “NYC In Peril”:

[W]e could be looking at a 6-10 foot storm surge in NYC, plus astronomical high tide — as opposed to the 3-5 foot surge in Irene — if Sandy slams New Jersey from the east.

Did you get that? A 6-10 foot storm surge plus high tide? That’s what I wrote at 1:08 AM Saturday, more than 64 hours before landfall.

The “plus high tide” part is critical. To explain why, let’s go over some terminology. Here are NOAA’s definitions of the terms storm surge and storm tide:

Storm Surge: An abnormal rise in sea level accompanying a hurricane or other intense storm, whose height is the difference between the observed level of the sea surface and the level that would have occurred in the absence of the cyclone. Storm surge is usually estimated by subtracting the normal or astronomic tide from the observed storm tide.

Storm Tide: The actual level of sea water resulting from the astronomic tide combined with the storm surge. Most NWS flood statements, watches, or warnings quantifying above-normal tides will report the Storm Tide.

To repeat: the “storm tide” is the total water level, caused by the “storm surge” plus the regular (“astronomic”) tide.

Sandy’s storm tide (or total water level) was 14 feet because the 9-foot storm surge peaked at high tide — and Monday’s high tide at Battery Park was to be 5 feet even without any surge. Now, remember those definitions. 5 feet is “the level that would have occurred in the absence of the cyclone.” 14 feet is “the astronomic tide combined with the storm surge.” 9 feet is the storm surge alone. 9 + 5 = 14.

This is no mere semantic distinction. It completely obliterates the entire notion that Con Edison, or Mayor Bloomberg or anyone else, can reasonably claim they were unprepared for a “14-foot surge” that was higher than anyone predicted. Here’s what the National Weather Service predicted at 11:23 PM Saturday, almost 48 hours before the storm hit:

TIDAL DEPARTURES…1 TO 1 1/2 FT ABOVE ASTRONOMICAL TIDES SUNDAY NIGHT…2 TO 4 FT ABOVE ASTRONOMICAL TIDES MONDAY MORNING…AND POTENTIAL FOR 5 TO 10 FT ABOVE MONDAY NIGHT INTO TUESDAY MORNING. THE HIGHER END OF THE RANGE RELEGATED TO THE MOST FLOOD PRONE COASTAL LOCATIONS.

So the National Weather Service predicted, as of Saturday night, a storm surge of 5 to 10 feet “above astronomical tides,” with the higher end of the range (closer to 10 feet) quite possible in New York Harbor specifically. Since astronomical high tide is 5′, that means NWS was necessarily predicting a potential storm tide of 10 to 15′ if the surge happened to arrive at high tide, which was obviously possible. (Hence the widespread pre-storm concern about “astronomical high tides” making matters worse.)

The NWS forecast was revised upward at 1:29 PM Sunday:

TIDAL DEPARTURES…BETWEEN 2 TO 3 FT ABOVE ASTRONOMICAL TIDES [SUNDAY NIGHT] DURING HIGH TIDE WITH LOCALLY HIGHER VALUES…3 TO 4.5 FT ABOVE ASTRONOMICAL TIDES MONDAY MORNING…AND POTENTIAL FOR 6 TO 11 FT ABOVE MONDAY NIGHT INTO TUESDAY MORNING. THE HIGHER END OF THE RANGE RELEGATED TO THE NEW YORK HARBOR…WESTERN LONG ISLAND SOUND AND THE LONG ISLAND SOUTH SHORE BACK BAYS.

So, roughly 30 hours before landfall, that’s a prediction of a storm surge 6 to 11 feet “above astronomical tides,” again with the higher end of the range (closer to 11 feet) possible in New York Harbor.

To review:

• New York Harbor got a storm surge 9 feet above astronomical tides.

• Forecasters predicted a storm surge 6 to 11 feet above astronomical tides, leaning toward the higher end of the range (i.e., 9 to 11 feet) in New York Harbor specifically.

And these people have the audacity to claim “nobody predicted” the surge that occurred?!?

Any public official who says the surge was “unexpected” or higher than predicted is either criminally incompetent, or blatantly lying, or both.

(More information and outrage after the jump.)

The photo is by Frank Franklin II of the AP, found on Twitter via Chris Heller this morning. It shows Breezy Point in the Rockaways section of Queens, ravaged by a fire last night that reportedly destroyed as many as 80 homes. Devastating. (Colorado sympathizes.) Mayor Bloomberg says there were 23 blazes across New York City, as Sandy’s aftermath made fires difficult to reach and difficult to fight. We often forget that it’s the second-order effects of these disasters that can sometimes be the worst parts — like in the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, when fires did far more damage than the quake itself. Thankfully, it appears no one was hurt in the devastating Breezy Point blaze.

10 people are already reported dead in New York, though, and Mayor Bloomberg says, Tragically we expect that number to go up.” As I said last night, I have no sense for how high it’s likely to go. We can only hope and pray it remains relatively low. There were also, if I have this right, at least 5 deaths elsewhere in New York state, 3 in New Jersey, 2 each in Maryland, Connecticut and Pennsylvania, 1 in West Virginia, and 1 on the HMS Bounty, for a total of 26 U.S. deaths so far. Along with the 67 deaths in the Caribbean and 1 in Canada, that’s 94 deaths total — and counting, I’m afraid.

Meanwhile, here’s another remarkable photo, which I didn’t publish last night because I was concerned it might be fake, but now The Atlantic appears to have confirmed it. It’s a shot of flooding last night in Manhattan’s East Village, apparently taken by jesseandgreg on Instagram (or posted on them, anyway):

Yikes. That’s gonna take a while to clean up.

It kind of feels like a good day to watch this video:

I’ll leave you again with a donation link for the American Red Cross. Please help the victims of this tragedy if you can.

Oh, and follow me on Twitter for my latest updates.

“With this storm, we’ll likely see a slow pileup of water rather than a sudden surge” -Michael Bloomberg, idiot, 10/27/12. #ImpeachBloomberg

— Brendan Loy (@brendanloy) October 30, 2012

Yes, I’m angry at “Hizzoner.” Not for failing to prevent an act of nature, but for failing to do his damn job properly — and, worse, grossly misleading the public — during the run-up to this extremely well-forecasted storm. Yes, I think a public accounting of his gross errors is required, at a bare minimum.

But I also don’t want to keep obsessing endlessly about this right now. I’ve made my point. I’ve made it firmly. And I will keep calling out any dishonest CYA statements by public officials about storm “expectations,” like this one by Bloomberg (see also here). I think it’s critical to do that in real time, lest inaccurate memes take hold in the public consciousness. At the same time, I don’t want to be perceived as grandstanding, and as having an axe to grind against Bloomberg in particular, while people are suffering. Certainly, I am not trying to beat my chest and brag about having been “right.” I wish I’d been “wrong” (in the sense that NYC had lucked out). This isn’t about me; what I said was obvious and unremarkable, in my view. It’s about Bloomberg. But anyway, y’all know where I stand; I don’t need to keep repeating it.

For the record, though, I did add a lengthy “update” last night to the bottom of my “Get The Hell Out.” I knew that post would get some attention in retrospect, and I wanted to flesh out my position a bit, and address the obvious counterarguments, in the body of the post. I’ll reprint that update here, after the jump, for those who are interested. And that’s all I’ll have to say about the matter in this space, at least for the moment.

UPDATE: Okay, so Kathleen Parker forced me to say a little bit more…

Forget Romney/Obama. I’m betting lots are thinking President Bloomberg this morning.

— kathleenparker (@kathleenparker) October 30, 2012

Is @kathleenparker trolling me? The idea of “President Bloomberg” is shockingly moronic. She needs to read this: pjmedia.com/weathernerd/20…

— Brendan Loy (@brendanloy) October 30, 2012

So many “opinion leaders” are such cheap dates. “Project leadership” after a disaster, even if you royally f***ed up the prep, you’re a hero

— Brendan Loy (@brendanloy) October 30, 2012

Remember Nagin getting tons of praise for being “no-nonsense” or whatever when he said “where the hell are the cavalry”? Ugh. #journalism

— Brendan Loy (@brendanloy) October 30, 2012

It’s not that hard to stand there AFTER a disaster, look tough & show “resolve.” Making the right calls BEFORE and DURING matters far more.

— Brendan Loy (@brendanloy) October 30, 2012

Okay… now for that “update” to my earlier post, reposted after the jump:

You all don’t need me to tell you what happened tonight; you’ve all seen the pictures by now, and watched the live TV reports, and heard the accounts. Hurricane Sandy, precisely as feared, brought a 9-foot storm surge — well within the predicted 6- to 11-foot range — into New York Harbor, which combined with the 5-foot astronomical high tide to create a record-shattering water level of 13.88 feet at Battery Park.

The water level was above 10 feet — the approximate threshold for major NYC flooding — for more than 5 consecutive hours. The results, of course, were devastating. Neighborhoods submerged; cars floating in the streets; the subway system flooded; a major hospital forced to evacuate; raging fires all over the city, with limited ability to fight them; and on and on. And it’s not over yet.

At the peak of the flood, Ground Zero in Lower Manhattan looked like this:

We’re going to wake up Tuesday to a terribly changed and damaged New York. I fear we may also wake up to more deaths than any of us can bear, as someone once said on another terrible day in the city’s history — although I confess I really have no idea what to expect in terms of death toll. We can only hope and pray it’s relatively low.

Of course, Sandy didn’t just hit one city. Eight years ago, a friend of mine commented on the movie The Day After Tomorrow: “Once again, the whole world is endangered, and to us that means…New York.” It felt a bit that way on Monday, as the Big Apple’s troubles overshadowed the equally calamitous impact that Sandy had along the New Jersey shore, where places like Atlantic City and Ocean City were hugely devastated by the surge. Long Island and Connecticut was also very hard-hit. We’ll learn more about the extent of damage in the coming days, but it’s clear this storm was very much the monster we feared, and that its impact was widely felt.

On that note, don’t forget what I wrote earlier, and reiterated tonight in a tweet RTd almost 500 times now: I do not want to hear any government or civic official saying that Sandy “caught us off guard,” or that it was “unexpected,” or that its impacts were “worse than we expected,” or anything like that. Such statements are blatantly false. Sandy was an extraordinarily well-forecasted storm (and thank goodness for that), and what it did yesterday is precisely what has been forecast for many days now by the computer models. There was absolutely no reason for anyone to be surprised, and you should not tolerate CYA excuses that claim otherwise. That includes claims about the “surprising” surge, which, as I mentioned, was not 14 feet in New York, but rather 9 feet, well within the 6-11′ forecast range (high tide provided the other 5′ of the 14′ total water level). I would view any “caught us off guard” statement by any public official as, effectively, a letter of resignation.

Relatedly, anyone who did not realize how much damage a 6-11′ surge on top of a 5′ high tide could do to New York City simply has not been paying attention, because this scenario has been discussed ad nauseum for years. What we saw on TV out of the Big Apple last night was distressing and horrifying, but it was not, by any stretch of the imagination, surprising. Rather, like Katrina in New Orleans, it was a long-feared nightmare come true.

Anyway… I’m beat, folks. I’ve had some long days of almost nonstop blogging and tweeting about this storm, as it became clear what a threat it was — I think I slept a combined total of six hours the last two nights, and while I could do that sort of thing more easily during Katrina at age 23, I just don’t have the stamina for it anymore, at age 30 (er, 31…today, post-midnight, is my birthday). So I don’t have time to put together a comprehensive summary right now, and my coverage Tuesday will probably be a lot lighter, too. Really, with the exception of some Great Lakes winds and some Appalachian snows, plus the ever-present threat of inland flooding, we’re mostly past the “Weather Nerd”-geared part of this story now, anyway. I’m your guy for obsessive tidal-gauge analysis, one-stop landfall data shopping, and wildly premature hurricane-related election speculation, but there are countless other, better sources for the more ordinary task of reporting or aggregating news about storm damage now that it’s happened. Even so, I will probably do a wrap-up post at some point, once we know more, and I will certainly keep updating my Twitter with some regularity. But I will be gradually winding down my Weather Nerd coverage of Sandy. Thanks for reading, everyone.

I’ll leave you with a donation link for the American Red Cross.

*     *     *     *     *

If my reading of the Battery Park tidal gauges (charts here and here; raw data here) is correct … and if my understanding is right that a water level (i.e., the red line on the charts) higher than 10 to 10.5 feet would cause a major flooding event in New York City that would inundate the subways and swamp low-lying areas of the city … it appears to me that, unless the storm surge (i.e., the green line on the charts) slows down from its current pace of increasing approximately 1 foot per hour, a significant New York City flooding event will begin sometime in the 5:00 to 6:00 PM hour local time, probably closer to 5:30 or 5:40 PM, but in any event well before the 9:00 PM high tide (and thus, presumably, continuing unabated for several hours).

Tidal Gauge at The Battery, New York, NY:

Caveat: I’m neither a meteorologist nor a hydrologist. But I can do arithmetic, and this is what I’m seeing.

If you are in a flood-prone area in New York City, and you are reading this, and you can get safely to higher ground, DO SO IMMEDIATELY!!!

I hope and pray that everyone who needs to be on higher ground is already there, and that this is solely a property damage event, with no loss of life.

The same goes, of course, for New Jersey and Long Island and Connecticut and everywhere else. I’m just focusing on New York City here because, well, it’s New York City. But the suffering is going to be widespread.

UPDATE, 4:21 PM: Literally as I was publishing this, the surge’s acceleration slowed down from ~1 foot of additional surge per hour, to ~1/2 foot of additional surge per hour. (That’s on top of the normal increase in water level due to the tide coming in, i.e., the blue line.) But this deceleration only delays the inevitable. Unless the storm surge (green line) not only slows its increase, but reverses itself and begins going down — which presumably won’t happen until the winds from Sandy shift, which does not appear imminent — the NYC flood will begin no later than 7:00 PM, and likely sooner.

UPDATE, 5:15 PM: Knock furiously on wood, but it appears that the storm surge stopped rising at 4:40 PM, and may now be very slowly decreasing. (The overall water level is still going up, but the storm surge — the difference between a “normal” tide and the surge-driven tide — is now stalling or dropping.) This is probably related to Hurricane Sandy’s acceleration toward the coast; the storm made a further left turn, and is about to make landfall. It is now possible that NYC will be spared the major flood that appeared imminent 90 minutes ago. However, it is going to be a very, VERY close-run thing, and a significant flood is still entirely possible. As it stands now, the current 6.6-foot storm surge would, without any further increase, be enough at high tide (which would be 4.74′ today with no surge) to push total water levels to 11.34′. So we need the surge to drop somewhere between 1 and 1.5 feet in the next few hours.

UPDATE, 5:44 PM: The surge is plateauing, not dropping, so for now, we’re still on course for the water level to reach 10 feet around 6:30 PM, and 10.5 feet around 7:00 PM, peaking at 11.4 feet just before 9:00 PM — if the surge doesn’t start to drop by then. That timing assumes the surge holds steady at 6.7 feet; the projected water level rise is due solely to the “normal” tide coming in.

New York City may well still flood, but at a minimum, if this trend holds, the flood will be less severe and less long-lasting than if the surge had kept accelerating, as it likely would have if Sandy hadn’t taken the left turn and sped up toward the coast.

UPDATE, 6:16 PM: It now appears the surge (green line) has resumed increasing, albeit at a much slower rate: 0.02′ per 6-minute update on the tidal data, or 0.2′ per hour. If that continues, the total water level will top 10′ very shortly — at around 6:20 PM — and will top 10.5′ at around 6:45 PM.

UPDATE, 6:36 PM: The water level at the Battery has topped 10 feet and will soon reach 10.5 feet, with 2 1/2 hours until high tide. I assume that the flood is underway, though I haven’t seen confirmation of that yet.

UPDATE, 7:10 PM: Parts of New York City are, indeed, flooding. Here are two photos by Julian Ehrhardt, apparently in Brooklyn:

Parts of Lower Manhattan are reportedly flooding, too, and power has been shut off because of the flooding. See my Twitter feed for the latest.

UPDATE, 7:49 PM: The surge is accelerating again, increasing at a pace of more than 1.5 feet per hour over the last 30 minutes. Surge is now 8.41′, water level is 12.75′. If this surge pace continues, the water level will be above 15′ by high tide, more than 10′ of it from the surge alone.

Again, see my Twitter feed for the latest.

(Photo by christimallia on Instagram.)

It’s looking bad out there, as the above photo of Atlantic City, NJ indicates. Any hopes that Hurricane Sandy had been “overhyped” — that its storm surge would underwhelm, like Irene’s did in many places; that computer models’ forecast of last-minute deepening was implausible and wouldn’t happen; or perhaps that Sandy would simply turn away and go out to sea — have now been dashed. A disaster is underway. The only question is how severe it will end up being.

What’s happening is precisely what the computer models have said, consistently for days now, was going to happen. Sandy is strengthening in the hours before landfall — down to an incredible, record-setting 937.5 millibars, according to the most recent reconnaissance data, a drop of 6 millibars in less than 2 hours (!). At least one buoy, about 100 miles south of Montauk, NY, is reporting extreme wind gusts equivalent to Category 3 strength, although I have some doubts about that data. Regardless, the recon planes flying over the storm have measured increasing wind speeds near the center, prompting the NHC to estimate that Sandy now has 90 mph sustained winds at the surface. That suggests we could see a few 100+ mph gusts right on the coast. This is presently closer to a Category 2 hurricane than it is to a tropical storm.

Even more significantly, and also precisely as expected, Sandy is pushing an enormous storm surge toward the heavily populated coastline, well ahead of its center, as it makes the long-forecast sharp left turn that will force the full brunt of this uniquely destructive storm directly into the mid-Atlantic coast. More specifically, it now appears that Sandy will hit South Jersey or Delaware Bay this evening around 8:00 PM local time. Check out the NCEP NAM model forecast from WeatherBell:

8:00 PM is right at high tide, on the button, in Atlantic City — so that’s an extremely destructive scenario. It’s going to get even worse — and it already looks quite bad:

That photo of Atlantic City is by @NNJ_WxAuthority. See also Ken Shane’s photo of Ocean City, NJ (just south of Atlantic City):

(That’s one of several great pictures Ken Shane has posted.)

As I mentioned, high tide is 8:00 PM in Atlantic City. It’s 9:00 PM at Cape May to the south (particularly relevant if the storm jogs a bit more to the left) and Battery Park to the north. Which brings me to the question of the hour: will New York City flood? It is my understanding the the storm surge in New York needs to reach roughly 5.3 to 5.7 feet at tonight’s high tide in order to cause a serious flood that will swamp the subways and the like. As you can see in my “One-Stop Shop” post, the tidal gauge for Battery Park is showing a surge (the green line) of 4.5 feet as of 1:00 PM, and slowly rising. Live data:

Tidal Gauge at The Battery, New York, NY:

The surge only needs to rise another foot or so from where it stands at 1:00 PM, and then maintain that heightened level until 9:00 PM, to cause a big flood in New York. That seems, to me anyway, highly likely at this point. Even if landfall occurs an hour or two before NYC’s high tide, and even if it happens over South Jersey or Delaware Bay instead of North Jersey, there should be enough onshore wind and water movement into New York harbor in the hours surrounding landfall to keep pushing the surge higher. We’ll see. I hope I’m wrong.

It’ll be bad on the south coast of Long Island, too, and along Long Island Sound. I’m deeply concerned about reports that thousands of people in low-lying areas did not evacuate. I can only hope they are able to seek shelter in higher floors of high rises (although the wind will be stronger there) and ride out the storm safely. It would be doubly tragic if lives are lost in this fashion — first because all such deaths are tragic, but second because these, in particular, would be so completely preventable. It’s not like Sandy caught us by surprise. Many local officials, notably Michael Bloomberg but others too, should have been more decisive in ordering evacuations sooner. The National Hurricane Center should have set aside semantic quibbling and issued Hurricane Warnings instead of “High Wind Warnings.” Above all, residents in flood-prone areas should have taken responsibility for themselves and Gotten The Hell Out. I sincerely hope that lives are not lost because of these failures.

Regarding the storm’s behavior in the next few hours, if you’re looking for something to hope for — now that most of our hopes have been dashed — I can offer two suggestions. First, hope for Sandy to move as quickly as possible toward the shore. Perhaps it could manage to make landfall a few hours before high tide. That’d be good. Second, hope the peak storm surge at the center of Sandy won’t be as severe as might be implied by the remarkably destructive surge hundreds of miles away. This is the “hive, not pimple” effect (© Alan Sullivan, RIP) that you may remember from Hurricane Ike. I don’t think it will be enough to meaningfully spare the threatened areas in this case, but we can always hope. So, hope for that. And watch those tidal gauges.

One last note. I want to put down a marker here. Actually, I put it down yesterday on Twitter, and reaffirmed it this morning, but let’s reiterate it here, because this is important: I do not want to hear ANY government official saying, post-storm, that Sandy “caught us off guard,” that it was “unexpected,” that its impacts were “worse than we expected,” or anything like that. TO SAY SUCH A THING WOULD BE A COMPLETE LIE. What’s happening right now is precisely what has been forecast for days. So, I would view any such statement by any public official as, effectively, a letter of resignation.

Again, follow me on Twitter for my very latest updates, and go to my “One-Stop Shop” post for live landfall tracking data.

P.S. Some live video streams to follow the storm:

• The Weather Channel
• CNN
• News 12 (Long Island, NY)
• NBC 4 (New York, NY)
• ABC 7 (New York, NY)
• WTNH (New Haven, CT)
• WFSB (Hartford, CT)
• WVIT (New Britain, CT)

NOTE: This post briefly included a stirring photo by Henry Mack III, now going viral on Twitter, of soldiers guarding the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in the Sandy’s pouring rain. It’s a great picture — but it’s not from today, and has nothing to do with Sandy. I apologize for propagating the error. I should have checked more closely.

As I did with Irene and Isaac, I thought it would be helpful to create a “one-stop shop” of live data about Hurricane Sandy, so you can track everything in one place as the storm moves ashore.

For the sake of everyone’s browsers and processors, I’ll split this post up into multiple pages/sections by type of image (tidal gauges, satellite, radar, etc.). But if you think your computer can handle it, you can view everything on one page here.

The pages/sections are:

• Tidal Gauges
• Satellite Maps
• Radar Maps
• Wind, Pressure & Wave Heights

Here’s a quick sampling of the sort of images on those pages/sections of this post:

Tidal Gauge at The Battery, New York, NY:

(NOTE: The main Battery Park tidal gauge display is having on-again, off-again issues. If the above image is blank, try this backup. Remember: the storm surge is the green line, i.e., the red “Observed Height” minus the blue “Predicted Height.”)

Northeast Sector Radar:

RGB Satellite, Eastern U.S.:

Wind & Pressure, Cape May, NJ:

Also, I’m not going to embed them all in this post, but you may want to check out these webcams, as well as this webcam with sound from the torch of the Statue of Liberty.

Anyway… on with the “one-stop shop.” I’ll start with tidal gauges. Again, click here to view everything on one page.