Hurricane Sandy Set to Veer West

Another day, another strange veering off the projected course for Hurricane Sandy/Snor’eastercane/SnoCone/Frankenstorm. In this case, it’s good fortune for Southern New England and unhappy news for the mid-Atlantic.

The National Hurricane Center’s projection, visualized above, projects landfall somewhere between Connecticut (which would cause more damage here) and North Carolina (bringing pretty minimal impact to the northeast.) Most forecasters agree that it’s likely to move inland far south of us, which could bring storms, rain, and coastal damage, but will look far more like a strong Nor’easter than a all-out hurricane. The Globe’s David Epstein writes:

We won’t miss the storm, but the impact of the storm could be quite minimal, think big rainstorm. A southern New Jersey landfall would give us a moderate storm. If the storm hit Maryland or Virginia the impact would be even less severe in southern New England. If the storm’s landfall shifted southern Connecticut, would we see major damage to much of the coast and widespread tree damage. The trend the past few model runs has been to keep the storm in the mid-Atlantic region, good news for us, bad news south.

Speaking of bad news to our south, Hurricane Sandy rolled through Jamaica, Haiti and Cuba already. Damage in Cuba was particularly sever, Reuters reports, where wind gusts reaching 150 miles per hour left several dozen dead and significant property damage. A lot of hit was focused in the historic city of Santiago de Cuba. Reuters reports on the city’s importance:

Santiago de Cuba, 470 miles (756 km) southeast of Havana, is a popular tourist destination because of its large role in Cuban history, its music and its Caribbean ambience.

Its first mayor was Hernan Cortes, who went on to conquer Mexico for Spain, key battles were fought there during the Spanish-American War and Fidel Castro spent part of his childhood in the city.

No good.