As for a nor'easter that seem like it couldn't do much harm, it did well more than expected. This is my perspective of this incredible high wind storm. It first started out as a warm calm wet night. The wind was advisory was already put into effect, although the air was completely still. When I went to sleep around 11:30PM EST, the wind was still calm, there was light rain and the pressure was around 993.5hpa. The strange thing is, according to local airport data, right around midnight, the wind suddenly increased, and the pressure instantly, over 30 minutes, dropped to 988hpa. The wind kicked up, from a 0mph wind, to a sustained 41mph NNW wind along with gusts up to 70mph in some parts of the island. That's tropical storm force winds! Now most of you are thinking well ok, what's the big deal? Well I'll tell you this, where I live, there are a lot of very tall Norway Spruces about 70-120ft tall. If you get a 65mph gust, at the tops of those trees would probably be about a 70-75mph wind. Those tree bend to their tipping points and it's actually very scary. There was also damage caused by this high wind event. I saw tree limbs down, garbage pales some 10-20ft away from where they should be, and outdoor Christmas decorations knocked down. The strong winds didn't last long though, reaching their peak intensity at around 2:00am. I love high wind storms because it's amazing to watch the trees move greatly in the high winds. The storm only dropped to 988hpa, just imagine if the storm was any stronger. I was up for the worst of it too. Compared to other nor'easters, this would be in the top 5 of the past decade. It was nothing like the March 13, 2010 nor'easter in which that one brought hurricane force wind gusts up to 80mph and the winds also lasted longer. Nor'easters are very under rated storms. For example, we lost power for 3 days here on Long Island because of the March 2010 nor'easter, which in fact, was weaker (in terms of pressure) than this storm. Anyway, I believe nor'easters can pack a powerful punch just as powerful as a hurricane can. I'll update this post when the NWS releases more information on the winds of this storm. Thanks for reading!
*NEW INFO: It appears that Westhampton, NY recorded a wind gust of 69mph!
Info from NWS:
***********************peak wind gust***********************
Location Max wind time/date comments
gust of
mph measurement
Connecticut
... Fairfield County...
Bridgeport Airport 45 310 am 12/08 ASOS
Danbury Airport 36 126 am 12/08 ASOS
New Jersey
... Bergen County...
Teterboro 41 621 am 12/08 ASOS
... Essex County...
Newark Airport 43 442 am 12/08 ASOS
Caldwell Airport 39 615 am 12/08 ASOS
New York
... New York County...
Central Park 39 250 am 12/08 ASOS
... Queens County...
Kennedy Airport 54 228 am 12/08 ASOS
NYC/La Guardia 48 248 am 12/08 ASOS
... Suffolk County...
Westhampton 69 347 am 12/08 ASOS
Patchogue 62 215 am 12/08 trained spotter
Shoreham 61 222 am 12/08 trained spotter
Islip Airport 56 312 am 12/08 ASOS
... Westchester County...
Hastings-On-Hudson 49 1133 PM 12/07 public
Airport data retrieved from:
http://www.wunderground.com/history/airport/KISP/2011/12/8/DailyHistory.html