Identification

Title

On the westward turning of Hurricane Sandy (2012): Effect of atmospheric intraseasonal oscillations

Abstract

Hurricane Sandy (2012) experienced an unusual westward turning and made landfall in New Jersey after its northward movement over the Atlantic Ocean. The landfall caused severe casualties and great economic losses. The westward turning took place in the midlatitude Atlantic where the climatological mean wind is eastward. The cause of this unusual westward track is investigated through both observational analysis and model simulations. The observational analysis indicates that the hurricane steering flow was primarily controlled by atmospheric intraseasonal oscillation (ISO), which was characterized by a pair of anticyclonic and cyclonic circulation systems. The anticyclone to the north was part of a global wave train forced by convection over the tropical Indian Ocean through Rossby wave energy dispersion, and the cyclone to the south originated from the tropical Atlantic through northward propagation. Hindcast experiments using a global coupled model show that the model is able to predict the observed circulation pattern as well as the westward steering flow 6 days prior to Sandy's landfall. Sensitivity experiments with different initial dates confirm the important role of the ISO in establishing the westward steering flow in the midlatitude Atlantic. Thus the successful numerical model experiments suggest a potential for extended-range dynamical tropical cyclone track predictions.

Resource type

document

Resource locator

Unique resource identifier

code

http://n2t.net/ark:/85065/d7w380gj

codeSpace

Dataset language

eng

Spatial reference system

code identifying the spatial reference system

Classification of spatial data and services

Topic category

geoscientificInformation

Keywords

Keyword set

keyword value

Text

originating controlled vocabulary

title

Resource Type

reference date

date type

publication

effective date

2016-01-01T00:00:00Z

Geographic location

West bounding longitude

East bounding longitude

North bounding latitude

South bounding latitude

Temporal reference

Temporal extent

Begin position

End position

Dataset reference date

date type

publication

effective date

2019-10-01T00:00:00Z

Frequency of update

Quality and validity

Lineage

Conformity

Data format

name of format

version of format

Constraints related to access and use

Constraint set

Use constraints

Limitations on public access

None

Responsible organisations

Responsible party

contact position

OpenSky Support

organisation name

UCAR/NCAR - Library

full postal address

PO Box 3000

Boulder

80307-3000

email address

opensky@ucar.edu

web address

http://opensky.ucar.edu/

name: homepage

responsible party role

pointOfContact

Metadata on metadata

Metadata point of contact