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Winds of 30 to 50 mph expected along coast

BY TOM HESTER SR.

NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM

Hurricane Earl is sending mixed signals to meteorologists Monday as it moves toward a three-day run along the East Coast from North Carolina.

"Right now it looks like the center (the eye of the hurricane) will pass a couple of hundred miles to the east of the New Jersey coast during Thursday night and Friday morning,'' Keith Arnesen, assistant state climatologist said at his Rutgers University weather center. "This could cause rough surf and gusty winds – 15 to 25 knots – along the southeast coast at that time."

The storm became a Category 4 hurricane with sustained winds of near 140 miles per hour Monday but Arnesen noted that hurricanes tend to turn out to sea before making a direct hit on New Jersey.

"Only once in 1821 did the eye (the center) of a hurricane pass over New Jersey, however there have been other times where New Jersey had significant affects from a hurricane who's eye was east of the coast,'' Arnesen said. "There are other times where we have had significant effects from weakening hurricanes (tropical storms), like Floyd in 1999. Hurricanes often follow the circulation around the subtropical High pressure system anchored in the North Atlantic ocean and that is why they often have recurvature towards the north and then northeast.''

Alex Sosnowski, AccuWeather.com senior meteorologist, said, areas from southeastern Virginia to Maryland, New Jersey and Long Island are in for the brunt of Earl's winds and seas Thursday night into Friday. An AccuWeather chart depicts the hurricane brushing the New Jersey coast with 30 to 50 mile per hour winds.

"In short, areas from North Carolina to New England and Atlantic Canada will be adversely affected by Earl during the second half of the week with areas of beach erosion, possible damaging wind gusts, coastal flooding and dangerous seas and surf.

Any New Jerseyans born after the end of World War II in 1945, has not experienced a hurricane in the state. New Jersey has taken only one direct hit from a hurricane and it was a Category 1, the weakest, according to meteorologists. Delaware has never had a direct hit while Texas has had 158, 64 of them considered major.

The chance of a hurricane scoring a direct hit on New Jersey is 1 in 200, according to weather experts. Tropical storms and Nor'easters are a greater threat to New Jersey.

Arnesen has said in the past, "Historically, we have more problems with heavy rain from the remnants of tropical systems and the associated freshwater flooding - Floyd in '99, for example,'' he said. "We do have more problems from Nor'easters because there is just a much greater number of them that occur.''

The greatest killer hurricane to ever strike New Jersey was in 1806. Twenty-one people died when a ship sank off Barnegat Light.

The second deadliest hurricane, the 1944 Great Atlantic Hurricane, claimed nine people when it paralleled the coast on Sept. 13 and 14, with 125 mile-per-hour winds and waves up to 40-feet in height. It destroyed hundreds of houses and damaged thousands more as the waves washed away piers and boardwalks.

New Jersey has been soaked by the tropical storms and rainfalls from the remnants of hurricanes that have passed near the state since the autumn of 1999. That was the year, on Sept.17, when the last major hurricane-related storm struck New Jersey - Tropical Storm Floyd. The storm swept the state dropping over 13 inches of rain in the Bound Brook-Manville area and caused historic flooding, left over 650,000 people without power, and killed six people.

As for those nasty Nor'easters ... remember the 1991 Halloween Nor'easter, or as it became known nationally, The Perfect Storm? It struck the Jersey coast with waves up to 30 feet high and caused $90 million in damages, including flooding and significant beach erosion.

State Sen. Jeff Van Drew (D-Cape May) is taking the threat of a hurricane as an opportunity to say it is important for the Legislature to move forward on a his proposal to improve state emergency evacuation plans.

"We dodged a direct hit to our coast with Hurricane Danielle, and I'm hopeful we'll do the same with Hurricane Earl, but it's important to recognize that we won't always be so fortunate," Van Drew said. "Updating our emergency plans is critical to ensuring that we are prepared for any weather activity that comes our way and is particularly important to protecting our residents in the event a large-scale storm impacts the coast."

Hurricane Danielle created rip tides at the shore over the weekend, resulting in dozens of rescues — more than 50 in Atlantic City alone.

"While hurricane season began June 1, we're just beginning the peak period for hurricane and tropical storm activity in New Jersey," Van Drew said. "These major storms in the Atlantic are a reminder that there's still much work to do when it comes to creating a comprehensive emergency response plan for our state."

The proposal (S-264) was developed from recommendations by a legislative task force that convened in the wake of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. The bill addresses a broad range of issues to better prepare the state for a hurricane or tropical storm, from ensuring that evacuation plans are consistent among counties, to giving the public information about how to respond to an emergency evacuation.

The legislation was unanimously approved last month by the Senate Law and Public Safety Committee and was referred to the upper house Budget and Appropriations Committee, where it awaits consideration.