Sandy’s highest sustained winds hit 110 mph with a gust of 114 mph around 1:30 a.m. on Thursday. By Friday morning, the maximum sustained winds dropped to around 80 mph by 8 a.m.
The forecast over the next few days does not feature any huge change in intensity, keeping Sandy as a category one hurricane with winds fairly close to 80 mph.
The path should curve northeastward over the next 24 hours, and it will run parallel to the southeastern coast of the USA. Once it gets to the latitude of roughly Cape Hatteras, the storm will begin a turn to the northwest.
As of now, it looks like the path may cause a landfall in southern New Jersey or northern Delaware (after moving through the Delaware Bay).
There is still a bit of certainty of the track past Monday afternoon, so it will continued to be monitored. Any shift westward would cause more of an impact for our area, and any shift northward or eastward will cause less of an impact for our area.
Conditions will deteriorate on Sunday and be the worst during Monday, before lessening a bit Tuesday afternoon.
By the time we reach Wednesday, coastal areas (including the Northern Neck & Middle Peninsula) may receive over six inches of rain. The metro area will likely see a few inches of rain with the potential for over four inches of rain. Areas in western Virginia will see lesser amounts of rain, but this may get modified if the track changes during the Monday-Tuesday time period.
Wind gusts will be quite strong, exceeding 60 mph along the coast Monday into Monday night. Gusts exceeding 50 mph are possible down the I-95 corridor. Usually, frequent gusts of 50 mph or greater produce power outages, so this is a problem this storm will create for our area.
We will continue to update the forecast as new data comes in.
Stay With CBS 6, We’ll Keep You Ahead of the Storm
