Like A Hurricane

I thought we'd be spared.  Although predictions for an active hurricane season appeared to be on track, it appeared that things had slowed down on the tropics and any storms that formed later had less of a chance to hit the American Northeast.  But weather forecasters are talking about a major storm with tropical moisture - something like a nor'easter but would be a hybrid of tropical and non-tropical disturbances - for Sunday into Monday.

Aside from forcing the postponement of my book club meeting scheduled for this coming Sunday night, this storm could very well leave my mother and me in the dark for yet another interminable and indefinite period.  I'm kind of expecting any big storm to knock out our electricity, seeing as we haven't had a blackout-free year since 2009.  

This storm may or may not be named Jerry, depending on how much tropical energy it gets, and it may not even get close enough to the coast to affect anyone (beach erosion on the coast, heavy rain and gusty winds inland if it does), but its possible path paralleling that of Superstorm Sandy's path from last year has a lot of people in New Jersey - me included - freaking out.  But so far, The Weather Channel and the Tri-State Weather Facebook page say that it won't even come remotely close to the power and the impact of Sandy and that we shouldn't worry about it so much.

Right.  A week before Sandy made it up to New Jersey, we were told not to worry about it.  Then, five days before it hit, forecasters told us, no, we'd better worry about it. So I don't necessarily take exhortations to keep calm seriously because, well, things change.  But then maybe I shouldn't worry about it, for the same reason. Time will tell if we get a storm like Andrea in June of this year, which was no big deal, or if we get a storm bad enough to warrant a benefit concert, the sort of storm Chris Matthews is glad to have for political reasons.