THE SAXBY GALE: A LUCKY GUESS?

[gigabite]

http://www.islandnet.com/~see/weather/a ... m10oct.htm

on 1 October, a tropical storm roamed the eastern Caribbean. The storm was first detected in the open Atlantic Ocean north of the Bahamas on 4 October. (It may have been previously encountered as a tropical storm south of Hispaniola on 1 October, though the NOAA HURDAT analysis suggests they are separate storms.) The as-yet-unnamed storm — it would later be called the Saxby Gale and the Great Northeastern Rainstorm and Flood of October 1869 — was moving rapidly northward off the Carolina/Virginia coastline headed for New England and the Canadian Maritimes. At its peak, the Saxby Gale likely reached a force that would place it at Category 2 on the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Scale. The storm’s lowest pressure has been estimated at 965 mb with peak wind speed of 166 km/h (104 mph).

At the same time, an intense low-pressure trough and attendant cold front advanced across New York State, and it would pass New York City around noon of the 4th. The trough and the hurricane appear to converge around the eastern Massachusetts coast in mid afternoon. Analysis of the situation over a century later suggests that the tropical storm, which should have been diminishing in intensity, received an infusion of energy from the extratropical system. This formed a hybrid storm that reintensified in strength as it entered New England waters.

[Hybridstorm_November2001]

The scenario mentioned reminds me of what is suppose to happen with Sandy, only in the case of Saxy Gale it happened further East.