CENTENNIAL HONORS COLLEGE
Western Illinois University
Undergraduate Research Day 2015
Poster Presentation
A Synoptic-Scale Comparison of Hurricanes Sandy and Earl on Factors Controlling
Movement
Ryan Sutera
Faculty Mentor: Jongnam Choi
Meteorology
Hurricane Sandy made landfall along the New Jersey shoreline on October 29, 2012. This hurricane
brought $50 million in damage and took 72 lives, while Hurricane Earl during August 25 – September 4,
2010 did take a similar track up the east coast but it did not make land fall. This study will be a synoptic
scale comparison of Hurricanes Sandy and Earl on surface and upper air conditions controlling
movement. In order to determine the conditions favorable for the steering of the two Hurricanes;
Temperature, pressure, winds, and specific humidity at both surface and pressure levels at 1000hPa, 850
hPa, 500hPa and 300hPa and the maps of the departure of above variables from the long-term normal
were constructed using the reanalysis gridded data from the NCEP/NCAR data archive. Unidata’s
Integrated Data Viewer (IDV) 5.0 was used to analyze and create composite data and maps. The
preliminary results show that the patterns of sea surface temperature, temperature anomalies between land
and ocean, and upper-air conditions are quite different for both Hurricanes. Findings from this study
enable meteorologists to make a better prediction on path of Hurricane at Northeast coast of the United
States.