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Given that the approaching storm has become the event that it eating news coverage, at least if you live in the Eastern US, I thought readers might want to discuss what they are seeing locally and how it tracks with the weather predictions. At least here in Manhattan, conditions outside have been consistently milder than what Weather.com has been predicting (not their weather porn on TV, but their hour-by-hour forecast, which shows, among other things, expected wind speeds and precipitation levels). The wind so far is a lot less than the forecast level (which was for 19 MPH now-ish, with higher-speed gusts; I was just out and the air was close to still, with only occasional gusts perhaps up to the 20 MPH). But the real damage from the storm isn’t to come from the wind, but the storm surge. Even the reports from sites that don’t benefit from weather sensationalism are pretty grim. For instance, this summary comes from Wunderground (hat tip Lambert):
Published: 9:58 PM GMT on October 28, 2012
Hurricane Sandy has changed little in intensity today, and remains a very large, powerful hurricane. Sandy is going to cause billions of dollars in damage Monday and Tuesday in the Eastern U.S. due to storm surge, high winds, and heavy rains. Sandy is of near record-size, with tropical storm-force winds extending up to 520 miles from its center, covering an area larger than a Texas-and-a-half. This afternoon, Sandy brought