One more day to prepare for one of the worst storms to ever hit this area! This morning Sandy was located about 250 miles to the South-southeast of Cape Hatteras North Carolina moving northward. During the day today the winds will pick up from the northeast but there will be little of no rainfall, gusts can reach 35 MPH by this evening. Heavy rain and with strong damaging winds will begin by mid-morning on Monday, gusts to 55 MPH. Monday night will be the worst part of the storm with gusts possibly as high as 80 MPH with very heavy rain. Sandy is expected to come ashore near Sandy Hook around 10PM Monday night, damaging winds and very heavy rain will persist into Tuesday morning before slowly diminishing on Tuesday afternoon. Please take this storm very seriously, power may be out for several days, coastal flooding is even a bigger concern as the storm surge along the coast will be nearly 8 feet, this kind of surge will devastate our coastal areas, New York City subways may be shut down for one to two weeks. I would just add if people are told to evacuate along our coast as well as coastal areas of New York City should leave, this is much more serious than Irene was last year.. Rainfall of 2-6″ is expected, and with the area having a rather dry summer inland flooding should not be as bad as with Irene. Rain and winds will taper off Tuesday evening with wind gusts down to 40 MPH. Wednesday will be breezy with rain showers and cooler temperatures. Cool and dry the end of next week..

The forecast: Today – Cloudy with a chance of rain showers this afternoon, winds increasing gusting to 35mph by this afternoon, high near 60.
Tonight – Rain showers likely, windy with gusts to 45MPH, low near 50.
Monday – Very heavy rain with damaging winds, gusts to 65MPH, high in the mid 50s.
Monday night – Very heavy rain with damaging winds, gusts to 75MPH, low holding in the mid 50s.
Tuesday – Very heavy rain and damaging winds mostly in the morning, gusts to 60MPH, slowly diminishing in the afternoon, high in the mid 50s.
Tuesday night – Mostly cloudy with rain showers likely, top wind gusts to 40MPH, cooler, low in the low 40s.
Wednesday – Mostly cloudy with a chance of showers, diminishing winds, gusts to 30MPH, high in the mid 50s.
Thursday – Mostly cloudy, high in the mid 50s.
Friday – Partly sunny, high again the mid 50s.

Marine forecast: Today – Storm warnings – Northeast winds gusting to 45 knots by evening, seas rising to 11 feet.
Outlook – Storm conditions through Tuesday – winds gusting to 70 knots, seas up to 20 feet, winds and seas slowly diminishing by mid-week but at least small craft advisory level conditions into Thursday..

People should finish preparations for the storm today.

Try to have a good day!