Please see below (after the transcript and show notes) for links to news and upcoming events.
TRANSCRIPT
From the Cumberland Gap to the Atlantic Ocean, this is
Virginia Water Radio for the week of October 29, 2012.
This week, we start with a warning that residents of
northern Virginia and other areas around the Chesapeake Bay could have heard on
National Weather Service radio on the morning of October 29. Have a listen for about 20 seconds.
SOUND.
That was an excerpt from the outlook issued by the Weather
Service’s Baltimore/Washington forecast office at 6 a.m. on the 29th,
as Hurricane Sandy approached landfall along the mid-Atlantic coast. Along with high winds and heavy rainfall, one
of the most serious impacts expected from Sandy is storm surge and the flooding it can cause to low-lying coastal
communities. Hurricane Sandy’s large
storm-surge and coastal-flooding potential is due to the storm’s arrival at the
time of increased tides from a full moon, and to the large size of its wind
field, which increases both the timing and extent of storm surges. For an introduction to storm surge potential
in Virginia and how shoreline residents can prepare, have a listen for about a minute
to the following excerpt from a Virginia Department of Emergency Management
video. The excerpt includes list of
Virginia areas most at risk from storm-surge flooding.
SOUND.
By all accounts, Sandy is expected to be historic, not for
record-breaking wind speeds but for the floodwaters pushed up in her storm
surge. Let’s hope Surging Sandy is a bit
less than feared.
For other water sounds and music, and for more Virginia
water information, visit our Web site at virginiawaterradio.org,
or call us at (540) 231-5463. From the
Virginia Water Resources Research Center in Blacksburg, I’m Alan Raflo,
thanking you for listening, and wishing you health, wisdom, and good water.
SHOW NOTES
(Above) Hurricane Sandy, 12:15 p.m. EDT, 10/29/12; Photo from NOAA Web site http://www.goes.noaa.gov/browsh.html, accessed 10/29/12, 1:20 p.m.
(Above) House destroyed by 15-foot storm surge in North Carolina during Hurricane Floyd in 1999. Photo by Dave Gatley/Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), accessed at National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) “Storm Surge” Web site, http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/surge/, 10/29/12.
Sources for more
information:
The National Weather Service/National Hurricane Center Web
site, at http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/,
includes information on storm-surge potential and probabilities as part of its
updates and advisories on any tropical storm.
The Hurricane Center’s Web site also includes a “Storm Surge
Overview” page, at http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/surge/. Among other items, this page includes an
explanation of the factors that lead to storm surge, photographs and graphics,
and two short videos.
Recent Virginia Water
News
For
news relevant to Virginia's water resources, please visit the Virginia Water Central News Grouper,
available online at http://vawatercentralnewsgrouper.wordpress.com/.
Water Meetings and Other
Events
For
events related to Virginia's water resources, please visit the Quick Guide to Virginia Water–related
Conferences, Workshops, and Other Events, online at http://virginiawaterevents.wordpress.com/. The site includes a list of Virginia
government policy and regulatory meetings occurring in the coming week.