Forecasters in Miami say the center of former Hurricane Sandy has made landfall along the New Jersey coast near Atlantic City.
Stripped of hurricane status but every bit as dangerous, the weather monster known as Sandy wheeled toward the New Jersey and Delaware coast Monday after washing away part of the Atlantic City boardwalk, putting the presidential campaign on hold and threatening to cripple Wall Street and the New York subway system with an epic surge of seawater.
Just before it was expected to blow ashore in the evening, the National Hurricane Center announced that it considered Sandy no longer a hurricane but a wintry hybrid known as a post-tropical storm.
The decision was technical and based on the storm’s shape and its mix of cold and warm temperatures — a distinction that meant more to meteorologists than the 50 million people still in peril. The storm’s top sustained winds weakened only slightly, to 85 mph from 90.
As it closed it, Sandy knocked out electricity to more than 1.5 million people and figured to upend life for tens of millions more. It smacked the boarded-up big cities of the Northeast corridor, from Washington and Baltimore to Philadelphia, New York and Boston, with stinging rain and gusts of more than 85 mph.
It was expected to come ashore in southern New Jersey or Delaware, converging with two cold-weather systems to form a fearsome superstorm of snow, rain and wind. Forecasters warned of 20-foot waves bashing into the Chicago lakefront and up to 3 feet of snow in West Virginia.
Airlines canceled more than 12,000 flights, disrupting the plans of travelers all over the world, and storm damage was projected at $10 billion to $20 billion, meaning it could prove to be one of the costliest natural disasters in U.S. history.
Stripped of hurricane status but every bit as dangerous, the weather monster known as Sandy wheeled toward the New Jersey and Delaware coast Monday after washing away part of the Atlantic City boardwalk, putting the presidential campaign on hold and threatening to cripple Wall Street and the New York subway system with an epic surge of seawater.
Just before it was expected to blow ashore in the evening, the National Hurricane Center announced that it considered Sandy no longer a hurricane but a wintry hybrid known as a post-tropical storm.
The decision was technical and based on the storm’s shape and its mix of cold and warm temperatures — a distinction that meant more to meteorologists than the 50 million people still in peril. The storm’s top sustained winds weakened only slightly, to 85 mph from 90.
As it closed it, Sandy knocked out electricity to more than 1.5 million people and figured to upend life for tens of millions more. It smacked the boarded-up big cities of the Northeast corridor, from Washington and Baltimore to Philadelphia, New York and Boston, with stinging rain and gusts of more than 85 mph.
It was expected to come ashore in southern New Jersey or Delaware, converging with two cold-weather systems to form a fearsome superstorm of snow, rain and wind. Forecasters warned of 20-foot waves bashing into the Chicago lakefront and up to 3 feet of snow in West Virginia.
Airlines canceled more than 12,000 flights, disrupting the plans of travelers all over the world, and storm damage was projected at $10 billion to $20 billion, meaning it could prove to be one of the costliest natural disasters in U.S. history.
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