News - Blogs - Nature just being mean now noreaster slamming East Coast

Nature just being mean now: nor'easter slamming East Coast
Published: 11/7/2012 4:34 PM
Last Modified: 11/7/2012 4:34 PM

Members of the National Guard clean debris as it snows in the New Dorp section of Staten Island, New York, Wednesday. A Nor'easter is aggravating already bad conditions in the wake of Superstorm Sandy. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)

Helena Hamilec of the Rockaway Beach neighborhood of the borough of Queens, New York, in the United States of America, walks though her neighborhood where debris that still liters the streets Wednesday in the wake of Superstorm Sandy. (AP Photo/Craig Ruttle)

Just when the East Coast could not possibly deal with any more bad news, here’s Athena.

Winter Storm Athena, to be exact. That’s the name The Weather Channel has given it, the first of their experiment in naming winter storms. Althea (not Athena) wrote about the new naming system -- and The Weather Channel’s reasons for it -- here.

But, Athena is a nor’easter that’s bringing cold, snow, wind, rain, possible flooding and storm surges to places that need nothing but sunshine, calm winds, gasoline and bulldozers.

As has been said about this storm, it is nowhere near as bad as Super-gigantic-megastorm Sandy was when it decimated a large swath of the country’s population corridor last week. Sandy combined with a nor’easter then to make that superstorm. This is just a nor’easter, but nothing to ignore.

Now, you may be saying, “Jerry. Stop. I live in Oklahoma, not the Catskills. What the heck is a nor’easter? With that little apostrophe stuck in the middle, it sounds made up.”

OK... it’s a little snippy of a request, but I’ll tell you anyway. A nor’easter is a very large area of low pressure just off the east coast of the United States. Low pressure systems spin counter-clockwise (like a hurricane), and with the system centered off the coast the rotation brings winds in from the ocean, from the northeast. Hence the name, nor’easter. They are most prominent in the winter months and are notorious for winds, winter precipitation, being generally large and in charge.

Snow has already started falling across parts of the East Coast. And that’s bad for a region still reeling from Sandy. At the peak, nearly 9 million people were without power in several states. That number is down now to about 639,000, but that’s still a little more than the population of Oklahoma City, for some reference.

(And millions in the region still need help. You can donate to the Red Cross to help with their relief efforts here, and I would encourage you to do so.)

Sandy brought up to 3 feet of snow in some places of Appalachia. Athena will bring between an inch to more than 6 inches from Delaware to Maine. It will also bring wind gusts up to 60 mph, a 2 to 4-foot storm surge in New York City and cold temperatures.

Weather here? It’s incredibly boring. Which is great, because it’s also incredibly beautiful. That’ll change this weekend when a cold front brings thunderstorms and lows below freezing. All of Oklahoma is currently forecast to get at least some badly-needed rain, but most will fall in our area and southeast. Sorry (again), Panhandle…

-- Jerry Wofford

Reader Comments

Show: Newest First

Learn About Our Comment Policy

To post comments on tulsaworld.com, you must be an active Tulsa World print or digital subscriber and signed into your account.

To sign in to your account, go to tulsaworld.com/signin.
To activate your print subscription for unlimited digital access and to post comments, go to tulsaworld.com/activate.
To purchase a subscription, go to tulsaworld.com/subscribe.

Almanac

Jan	Feb	Mar	Apr	May	Jun
Jul	Aug	Sep	Oct	Nov	Dec

	Temperature		Precipitation
Date	High Temp	Low Temp	Total	Month to date	Historical average
1	44°	16°	0	0.00	0.05
2	59°	24°	0	0.00	0.11
3	57°	33°	0	0.00	0.16
4	68°	37°	Trace	0.00	0.21
5	69°	29°	0	0.00	0.26
6	66°	33°	0	0.00	0.32
7	59°	38°	0.05	0.05	0.38
8	51°	34°	0	0.05	0.44
9	44°	36°	0.01	0.06	0.51
10	62°	37°	0.07	0.13	0.57
11	54°	28°	0	0.13	0.64
12	44°	30°	0.25	0.38	0.70
13	55°	40°	0.01	0.39	0.76
14	°	°			0.83
15	°	°			0.89
16	°	°			0.95
17	°	°			1.02
18	°	°			1.09
19	°	°			1.16
20	°	°			1.23
21	°	°			1.31
22	°	°			1.38
23	°	°			1.46
24	°	°			1.53
25	°	°			1.61
26	°	°			1.69
27	°	°			1.77
28	°	°			1.85

TEMPERATURE

RAINFALL

SNOWFALL

Weather World

Follow Jerry Wofford on Twitter for updates during severe weather conditions.

Tulsa weather milestones of 2013 (as of Feb. 12)

Highest temperature: 70 on Jan. 11 (Record: 115 on Aug. 15, 1936)
Lowest temperature: 15 on Jan. 16 (Record: Minus-16 on Jan. 22, 1930)
Hottest month (average): 40.5 degrees in January (Record: 91.7 degrees on July 1980)
Coldest month (average): 40. 5 degrees in January (Record: 21.7 in January 1918)
Most snowfall (day): 0.1 of an inch on Feb. 12(Record: 13.2 inches on Feb. 1, 2011)
Most snowfall (month): 0.1 of an inch in February(Record: 22.5 inches in February 2011)
Most rainfall (day): 0.91 of an inch on Jan. 29 (Record: 9.27 inches on May 26-27, 1984)
Most rainfall (month): 1.54 of an inch in January (Record: 18.18 inches on September 1971)
Highest wind speed: 30 mph on Jan. 30
Previous day with any rain: Feb. 12
Previous day with 1 inch or more of rain: Oct. 17, 2012
Previous day with any snow: Feb. 12
Previous day with freezing temperatures: Feb. 12
Read regular updates on Oklahoma's unpredictable weather and learn more about meteorology from the Tulsa office of the National Weather Service.

>> Visit the main weather page
>> Send us your weather photos
>> Meet the forecasters

Contributors
Staff Writer Althea Peterson started writing for the Tulsa World in March 2007 after previous stops at the Norman Transcript in 2006 and the Oklahoma Gazette in 2005. She followed her older brother from rural Wisconsin (with a public school that never seemed to call snow days) to the University of Oklahoma, but did not follow his pursuit to study meteorology. However, she tries to find as many opportunities to report on the weather as possible.

Staff Writer Jerry Wofford came to the Tulsa World in 2010 from The Manhattan Mercury in Manhattan, Kan. Originally from western Arkansas and a graduate of the University of Oklahoma, Jerry has lived in Tornado Alley his entire life and is one of those people who goes outside when the sirens go off.

Subscribe to this blog

Temperature
High Temp:	(Example: 45)
Low Temp:	(Example: 45)
Temperature Date:	(Example: 1/1/2011)

Precipitation
Total:	(Example: '.01)
Month to date:	(Example: '.01)
Normal month to date:	(Example: '.01)

2/2013	1/2013	12/2012	11/2012	10/2012	9/2012
8/2012	7/2012	6/2012	5/2012	4/2012	3/2012
2/2012	1/2012	12/2011	11/2011	10/2011	9/2011
8/2011	7/2011	6/2011

Your bookmark will appear on your Profile page. Please give it a title, and short description so that visitors to your page will understand where the bookmark leads.
Bookmark Title :

Bookmark Text :