Sandy hits Cuba; 'high impact' likely in Northeast

HAVANA?? Hurricane Sandy grew into a major potential threat to the Northeast on Thursday after hammering Cuba's second-largest city and taking aim at the Bahamas.

Strengthening rapidly after tearing into Jamaica and crossing the warm Caribbean Sea, Sandy hit southeastern Cuba early on Thursday with 105-mph winds that cut power, damaged homes and blew over trees across the city of Santiago de Cuba.

The storm has a 90 percent chance of smacking the Northeast and mid-Atlantic early next week with gale-force winds, flooding, heavy rain and maybe even snow, forecasters said Thursday.

"It's going to be a high-impact event," said Bob Oravec, a lead forecaster with the National Weather Service's prediction center. "It has the potential to be a very significant storm with respect to coastal flooding, depending on exactly where it comes in. Power outages are definitely a big threat."

The hurricane part of the storm is likely to come ashore somewhere in New Jersey on Tuesday morning, said forecaster Jim Cisco of the NWS prediction center.

"It's almost a weeklong, five-day, six-day event," Cisco added. "It's going to be a widespread serious storm."

It is also likely to hit during a full moon when tides are near their highest, increasing coastal flooding potential.

And with some trees still leafy and the potential for snow, power outages could last to Election Day, some meteorologists fear.

"It could be a Nor'easter on steroids," NWS meteorologist Robert Thompson told NBC station WHDH-TV in Boston. "It?s got the potential to rival the great Nor'easters of the past depending upon the eventual track it takes."

Nor'easters are powerful storms that come up along the East Coast from the south and then increase in volatility with winds from the northeast. In this case, another storm is expected to move into the Northeast from the Ohio Valley around the same time, adding to the weather mix.

Interactive: Wild Nor?easters explained (on this page)

Sandy will likely be around for the 21st anniversary of the infamous "Perfect Storm" of Oct. 30, 1991, that killed six fishermen, WHDH noted.

Even before any Northeast impact, eastern Florida as well as the Carolinas and mid-Atlantic states will see high winds, heavy surf and potentially beach flooding, weather.com reported.

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg said his staff was "getting out the plans" in case evacuations in flood-prone areas were needed, NBCNewYork.com reported.

Video: Wide area of Northeast threatened (on this page)

In Cuba, the eye of the Category 2 storm came ashore just west of Santiago de Cuba, the country's second largest city with 500,000 people.

The area saw waves up to 29 feet and a six-foot storm surge that caused extensive coastal flooding, Jose Rubiera of the Cuban weather service said in a television report.

Rubiera held the phone up to a window so viewers could hear Sandy's roaring winds that he said had left the city "completely dark" and created a "very tense" situation.

Heavy rains were falling throughout the storm-stricken region, with forecasters predicting six to 12 inches for most areas and as much as 20 inches in isolated places.

Rubiera said Sandy had intensified rapidly as it neared land fueled by 88-degree waters on its way from Jamaica, which was struck earlier in the day by the storm when it was still at Category 1 on the five-step Saffir-Simpson hurricane intensity scale.

One person died in Jamaica, and property was damaged across the eastern side of the island.

From Cuba, Sandy was expected to pass over the Bahamas by late Thursday.

For the U.S., the threat keeps increasing for "a major impact in the Northeast, New York area," said James Franklin, chief specialist at the National Hurricane Center. "In fact it would be such a big storm that it would affect all of the Northeast."

Cisco noted the 1991 "Perfect Storm" didn't hit as populated an area and is not comparable to what the East Coast may be facing. Nor is it like last year's Halloween storm, which was merely an early snowstorm in the Northeast.

This has much more mess potential because it is a combination of different storm types that could produce a real whopper of weather problems, meteorologists say.

"The 'Perfect Storm' only did $200 million of damage and I'm thinking a billion," said Jeff Masters, meteorology director of the private service Weather Underground. "Yeah, it will be worse."

Masters was somewhat skeptical on Tuesday, giving the storm scenario just a 40 percent likelihood, but on Wednesday he also upped that to 70 percent. The remaining computer models that previously hadn't shown the merger and mega-storm formation now predict a similar scenario.

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The biggest question mark is snow, and that depends on where the remnants of Sandy turn inland. The computer model that has been leading the pack in predicting the system has it hitting around Delaware. But another model has the storm hitting closer to Maine. If it hits Delaware, the chances of snow increase in that region. If it hits farther north, chances for snow in the mid-Atlantic and even up to New York are lessened, Masters said.

NOAA's Cisco said he could see the equivalent of several inches of snow or rain in the mid-Atlantic, depending on where the storm ends up. In the mountains, snow may be measured in feet instead of inches.

The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.

Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/49546844/ns/weather/

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