Halloween Nightmare: White & Wild Weather for the Northeast

Where the wild winds will blow

From AccuWeather:

A storm set to dump heavy, wet snow on millions of people in the Northeast will also scream with high winds in coastal and some inland areas this weekend.

While far from the worst windstorm ever, this screamer will knock out power, down trees and cause damage in New England, New York, New Jersey, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia....

That's no joke: One reason that trees have evolved to lose their leaves in the winter is to reduce their surface area to protect them from the weight of snow. Snow settling on tree leaves enormously increases the weight of trees, causing branches and tree trunks to break and shallow-rooted trees to topple.

Even in areas that receive little or no snow, the force of the wind on fully leafed trees standing in saturated soil will lead to falling timber. 

This could end up being worse than Irene in terms of downed trees and power outages, because winds will be stronger over a larger area.

Trees and limbs can crash down on power lines, houses, vehicles and passing pedestrians. Avoid wooded areas and tree-lined streets during this storm.

Sadly, at the very least, this storm will be a trial for people in affected areas, most especially those barely beginning to recover from recent severe flooding.

And then, as Ace has sagely noted, in certain East Coast "occupation zones," such as Zuccotti Park, it "looks like some faith in Global Warming™ is about to be tested." (H/t: Fishersville Mike) Reality is a hard teacher.
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