New Storm May Drop Cold Rain on Battered Northeast Next Week

New Storm May Drop Cold Rain on Battered Northeast Next Week

By Brian K. Sullivan on November 02, 2012

A cold rain will probably sweep next week over coastal areas of the U.S. Northeast devastated by Hurricane Sandy, including New York and New Jersey.

Colde Rain Predicted Next Week in the Northeast

A cold front moving onto the U.S. Pacific coast now is expected to travel across the country and develop into a nor’easter off Cape Hatteras, North Carolina. It may bring rain and possibly snow to the U.S. Northeast by Nov. 7-8, said Rob Carolan, a meteorologist at Hometown Forecast Services Inc. in Nashua, New Hampshire.

While the storm won’t be nearly as powerful as Sandy, it will “add insult to injury,” Carolan said by telephone.

“If it develops, it will be the first significant non- tropical storm of the season,” Carolan said. “Anyone inside a house without power isn’t going to be too happy that it is 40 degrees and raining outside.”

Hurricane Sandy knocked out power to as many as 8.5 million homes and businesses on the East Coast, including about half of New Jersey. About 4.8 million customers remained without power yesterday, from South Carolina to Maine and as far west as Michigan.

Lower Temperatures
The new storm may help keep normal average temperatures along the East Coast about 3 to 5 degrees Fahrenheit (1.7 to 2.8 Celsius) below normal from Nov. 7-11, said Matt Rogers, president of Commodity Weather Group LLC in Bethesda, Maryland. Colder-than-normal weather spurs energy use and may drive up natural gas and heating oil prices.

Average temperatures in the mid-Atlantic states, including New Jersey, will be about 8 degrees below normal from today until Nov. 6 and about 5 degrees lower in New York and New England, Rogers said.

The Northeast may then get 3 to 5 degrees warmer from Nov. 12-16 Rogers said.

Carolan said a computer model by the European Center for Medium Range Weather Forecasting showed the storm in its forecasts yesterday and now the Global Forecast System of the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has started to agree a system will develop.

Model Differences
Forecasters refer to these two models as the “European” and the “American,” Carolan said. The European was the first to predict Sandy would grow into a superstorm and rake the U.S. East Coast.

Carolan said the European model often detects systems first because Europe is more vulnerable to longer-developing storms that grow in the Atlantic before striking that continent. The U.S., on the other hand, is hit with faster-developing systems, so its models are more focused on shorter-range results.

The storm, if it develops, may bring snow to interior portions of New England, northwestern New Jersey and through the Poconos in Pennsylvania, he said.

To contact the reporter on this story: Brian K. Sullivan in Boston at bsullivan10@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Dan Stets at dstets@bloomberg.net