09.24.23 Had to get my weather bearings straight....

     As a striped bass fisherman one of the factors I look at is the weather. I have to be honest I can tell the difference between blue bird sky days and stormy ones but when it comes to really knowing weather I'm pretty much done. Yes, rain, wind, even how the tides are affected by the moon I kinda get, but these storm things leave me baffled. And when it comes to the rising and falling of barometric pressure, the weight of the atmosphere above us, well just forget it. But below might help explain it. 

     Yesterday I labeled, probably incorrectly, Ophelia as a nor'easter. It may have gone under the radar of fly anglers who read this blog but the weather junkies may have picked up on it. So what are these things and how are they identified. 

2007 Nor-easter

     In my understanding a key determinant in how and what makes a storm, a tropical storm, a super storm, a cyclone, or a hurricane different from each other is the wind. Another factor is where the storm originates from, which happens due when different systems, I think that's it, collide and then rocky weather formulates. So a nor-easter, which forms in the Eastern part of the United States, happens when cool, dry air from Canada meets with warm air over the Atlantic Ocean. Nor-easter's usually occur sometimes in the fall to late fall bringing high winds and rains but mostly in the winter where heavy snow falls occur. 

     So you can see above the different labels storm that originate out of the subtropics or tropics. Ophelia, which was a true tropical storm, has now been downgraded to a tropical depression. Her winds reduced down to a sustained 35 mph so she dropped down a category. 

     When the wind speed picks up then they go from tropical depression or storm into hurricane, or cyclone status. The cut off is up to 73 mph of sustained winds. Then you get into categories, one through five. When was the last time we had a Category 5 here on the East Coast? A little over two weeks ago. Hurricane Lee was a Cat 5 for 12 hours with winds up to 165 mph. The last one we really felt here in New Jersey was Hurricane Dorian in September, 2019. The picture below was taken by me a few days before it hit. That's what Pullman Avenue used to look like, thanks Frank Pallone. A$%hat.

Pullman Avenue September 2, 2019

So what about Sandy? What was that. People wax and wane between superstorm and hurricane. Truth be told, there are no clear and set criteria for superstorm. Hurricane Sandy, it was, was the 5th costliest storm in US history. Now was it a hurricane, yes, at some point. The highest sustained wind speed was 

100 mph, which made it a Category 2. But by the time it hit New Jersey it had weakened to "just a storm" but it was HUGE in size. Couple that with the moon phase and tide cycles and it was game over. What causes so much damage during these storms are the storm surges, which we saw with Sandy.

So yes, she was a hurricane, but is better known as a Superstorm, which has no real criteria, but in the end just means, "it was really bad". 

     So in the end I have top remember that winds during a storm don't always make it a nor-easter. It could have another name depending on it's origin and wind speed. What I do know is storms, and yes where they originate from and the course of travel, do affect the beaches, because direction of the wind and water can change the structure, pushing and pulling sand from long stretches of beaches, on both sides of true groins, and the inlets along the coast. 

       So Ophelia was angry. She's settled down a bit now. The after effects of her will be seen for a bit. It's going to take some time and tides for the ocean to clean up a bit and be fishable. In the meantime maybe a peek in the back bays and rivers may be a better shot.