"Except, I guess, it's not funny for the people in the affected area such as my wife's niece."

Did I say it was funny for the people impacted by it!?

Don't verbal me; I said any attempt to use Sandy as evidence for AGW was vulture like and that it was not unusual despite its destructiveness.

Extreme weather is now the 'hotspot' of AGW propaganda; like every other so-called 'proof' of AGW it is a lie, as a genuine scientist notes:

http://rogerpielkejr.blogspot.com.au/2012/10/top-10-damaging-hurricanes-within-50.html#comment-form

And don't conflate anyone who rejects evolution with scepticism of AGW. In fact the similarities between AGW and such off-shoots of religion like creationism and ID are the real stand-outs of the AGW ideology.

cohenite,

".....Cyclone Sandy was downgraded sometime ago; it is nothing out of the ordinary."

I think some folks in the north east of the US might beg to differ.

Sandy was downgraded fairly soon after it crossed the coast, but ya know it's not all about whatever category it was given, it's about the sheer size and nature of it, its late in the season formation and the fact that the waters were warm enough to sustain it all the way up the east coast of the US in late October - so that it could cause a massive storm surge and dump torrents where it did. For something that is "not out of the ordinary" I think you'll be surprised at the devastation revealed in the coming days in this heavily populated region.

I believe, that folks are right that one storm can't be regarded as anything decisive in the AGW debate, yet it's exactly the type of event that we can expect to happen with more regularity if ocean warming continues.

579 - I believe there's an Arctic storm front coming down from the north-west down through the middle and that is expected to link up with the remnants of Sandy's system.

Also noted that the storm hit on an expected high-tide on the night of a full moon - very bad timing.

Steven, Poirot, Sandy was not even much of a cyclone. Yes it was large & slow moving, but at it's peak was only a category 2. I have experienced larger & very much stronger cyclones in the Whitsundays which passed with nothing more than a few branches down. In one we had all our resort boats up a creek for 70 hours, it took so long to pass.

Last night Sandy was already considerably below the wind strength required to be classified as a cyclone at all. It was actually simply an extra tropical rain depression for the last 12 hours before crossing the coast.

The main thing with these US hurricanes is the large storm surge they generate. It is of course all the solid water coming ashore that is so dangerous & causes so much damage. It is much more dangerous than the wind that generated it.

Still why is it so common in the US, & so rare here.

I have started another thread hoping someone can tell me. I am not much good with Google, & could only get the simplistic Wikipedia description, which was not detailed enough to be much use.

It is a pity the simple blocking of a cyclone/depression by a high pressure ridge, something which helps shield us from much damage by ours, is being described in such extravagant language.

Poirot, just a few facts. There are a couple of very good papers, [no I don't have a reference] describing the effect of warming, if it occurs, on extreme weather.

In fact, it is the high latitudes that would warm most, reducing the potential between the tropics & the polls, which causes extreme weather. This reduction would be reducing extreme weather. That this reduction of extreme weather has happened over the last 30 years, is the only thing that gives me pause in my rejection of AGW.

A cyclone does not link up with another weather system, they repel each other, as do like magnetic polls. It was the depression that had been Sandy "bouncing" off the front coming down from the arctic that turned it inland south of New York, rather than continuing a course parallel to the coast, causing little damage or problem, as is usual, with these things.

The question of the spring tide is interesting. 35 years ago I knew a 90+ year old, very wise, very smart, but little educated gentleman, who's entire life had been as a fisherman, until injury changed him to park ranger. He did me the honor of educating me on things natural, of the sea, the reef, & the island parks.

One of those things was a system of forecasting the strength of a cyclone. Simply look to your tide chart. The higher the tide, the higher the cyclone damage. In my experience, which only covers from about Gladstone to Townsville, this has been right every time.

Hasbeen,

I was referring to a merging of systems once the cyclone was over land. Or do you have another explanation for the snow happening in Virginia?
http://hint.fm/wind/

I'm not going to quibble here over the wind strength of Sandy. Suffice to say that any storm with the potential to cause unusual and extreme conditions (the high water mark in New Jersey was "three foot higher" than the previous record) The issue here is that a weather event of this nature hitting a heavily populated and highly developed coastal community like that in north eastern America is always going to impact in a specific manner. Power outages in the sevens of millions and total transport shutdown (and subways filling with water) aren't the sorts of things that Caribbean islanders would experience in the same manner.

"...The higher the tide, the higher the cyclone damage..." - yes, for inundation with water, that would seem a reasonable assumption.

This was a late season cyclone, which impacted an area outside the tropics. The system was able to travel so far north at his time of year because the waters it travelled over were warm enough to sustain it. That it was only a low category cyclone doesn't mitigate the damage caused to the particular communities it impacted in the way in which it impacted.

Poirot, you are wrong; read the Pielke Jr post on Sandy to see that she is not such a late season storm with other, bigger storms occurring within spitting distance of Sandy's landbreak, doing so at close to the same time [ie mid to late September]:

http://rogerpielkejr.blogspot.com.au/2012/10/top-10-damaging-hurricanes-within-50.html#comment-form

It is also the case that almost to the same day in 1991 the perfect storm which sank the Andrea Gail occurred:

http://www.drroyspencer.com/2012/10/frankenstorm-sandy-approaches/#comments

There is no AGW fingerprint in Sandy.