Sandy Details Taking Shape

Finally, details are starting to take shape about how much wind and rain we can expect in our region from our new friend Sandy.

Sandy will snake her way into the mid-Atlantic region by late Sunday night into early Monday. She will move in a nearly westerly fashion away from us until she starts to bend her way back north and perhaps slightly north-north-east. We will stay on the easterly side of the storm, which means winds could be strong but the rain totals will be manageable. We'll be seeing a fair amount of precipitation--3" or so--by Wednesday.

Because river and stream levels are down from our summer drought, we should be able to absorb this rain; flooding should not be too great of a concern. It looks like to the GSD staff that the more significant concern is the wind, which could gust to 70 m.p.h. We think that realistically we'll see gusts approaching 50 m.p.h., but that's still nothing to shake a stick at. By all means get your deck chairs and patio furniture secure by Sunday afternoon.

The heaviest rain will now fall on Monday, during the afternoon and evening hours. Rain will be steady on Tuesday and diminish on Wednesday. We'll still have lingering intermittent showers all the way until Friday. There is the slightest of chances of a snow coating some time late Thursday into Friday but nothing that will even raise the eyebrows of superintendents or town road crews. Oh well.

So, really Sandy's going to be a big rain storm with the occasional serious gust of 50 m.p.h. winds somewhere between 3 pm on Monday and 5 am on Tuesday. Chances of a hurricane day are very limited, unless there are widespread power outages in the Berks in the overnight hours on Monday.