Frankenstorm's Monster

Hello again, Blog World.

As this collection of bits and bytes accessible to any and all with an internet connection will attest, in the past I have traveled many many miles in order to experience, study, and observe inclement weather. After one particularly awful birthday, I left my last weather venture (ROTATE 2012) early in order to relocate myself to the East Coast of the United States of America. And now, wouldn't you know it, it appears that the inclement weather may be coming to me.

That's right folks, on October 22, 2012, the eighteenth tropical depression of the season was christened "Sandy" and began to stroll north, stepping on Jamaica, Cuba, and Haiti before setting its sights on the Bahamas and the open ocean. It churned and churned and churned past Florida and as I type, its center is off the coast of the Carolinas as it undergoes a freakish transformation from tropical system to extratropical monster. Indeed, Sandy’s moniker “Frankenstorm” has nothing (ok, almost nothing) to do with the fact that the storm is occurring close to Halloween, nor does it have anything to do with the fact that you can see the heavily scarred and disfigured visage of a madman’s science experiment in Sandy’s satellite imagery if you squint your eyes and look close enough.  Oh no, the name “Frankenstorm” first appeared in an HPC discussion on October 25th, where forecaster Cisco mentioned that it would be a “GHOULISH NICKNAME.” (NOAA forecast discussions are generally all in caps. They also make heavy use of acronyms, which can make them difficult to read.) The fabulous FunnelFiasco has archived the discussion in question here. As you can see, Sandy was dubbed “Frankenstorm” because it was expected to become some freakish conglomeration of different storm parts, melded together to form a monster storm, like the reanimated body of some cold corpse; unnatural and shunned by man because they cannot understand its gargantuan stature or gruesome appearance.

(Literature aside: Contrary to popular belief, Frankenstein was not the ghoulish monster we’ve come to know and love with pale, pasty skin and battery terminals embedded into its suture laced neck. Frankenstein was instead the man that created the monster of which I speak; some mad scientist obsessed with the idea of bringing a body back from the dead. He never gave the monster a name, nor were we ever told what exactly the monster looked like. Instead, we were shown an initially kind and articulate creature who only wished to be loved and accepted, but who was despised and turned away by all, even his own creator, because of his hideous appearance. The trauma of constant rejection caused him to become slightly sociopathic, and he went on a crusade to make his creator suffer as much as humanly possible by destroying all of the people Frankenstein held dear. And to think, all the monster really wanted was to be loved!)

I look out the window now and it is calm. This won’t, however, last for long. I expect the rain to start some time while I sleep tonight, and tomorrow things will likely get windy. I plan to blog this experience, and if the power happens to go out while Sandy passes by, I’ve promised my friend Derrick (atmospheric science grad student and occasional contributor to weather stories at Lafayette, Indiana’s Journal and Courier) that I will continue my blogging in an old school manner: with ink wells and a glass pen.

(I’d also like to say at this time that I don’t think I’ll be driving to Kansas to escape the storm, and that I seriously doubt that Kansas has cupcakes that can rival the likes of which I have found at my favorite cupcake shop here.)

 

Sandy and the Great-Big-Late-October-Cold-Bringer, as seen by the NASA GOES-13 satellite on Friday, October 26, 2012. I can't think about this storm without getting the Evelyn Evelyn song, "Sandy Fishnets," stuck in my head. Image source - http://www.flickr.com/photos/gsfc/8125127055/in/photostream

Even though the heart of Sandy is still several hundreds of miles away off the coast of the Carolinas, it's cloud shield was still overhead today. Standing facing the horizon are three sentinels of that vast and "advanced" network of cables and wires that brings power forth from the depths of the earth and eons past and delivers it to your home so that you may pop fresh popcorn for your weekly movie nights. In the distance, Sandy whispers a grim promise to these sentinels that is carried on the wind to their innocent, metaphorical ears. "I'll get you," she says. "Beware, for I'm coming, and by the time I am gone, none of you shall stand!"