Sandy's Approach: Historic 'Frankenstorm' May Hit Sunday

Laurel residents will have time this weekend to prepare for what could be a monster of a hurricane early next week, according to the National Weather Service.

There's a slight chance of rain Saturday; otherwise, expect cloudy skies and temperatures the high 60s.

But by Sunday morning, Hurricane Sandy is expected to be off the coast of the Carolinas on a northbound trajectory.

Stay tuned to Patch for more updates, or keep tabs on the storm's approach through our Facebook and Twitter feeds.

Forecasters see Sandy coming onshore sometime late Sunday or Monday, according to NWS meteorologist Jason Elliott, but we’ll feel the impact ahead of that. 

"After Sunday," he said, "things keep going downhill.” 

The area should expect “at least” tropical storm-force winds and heavy rain across the area, Elliott said, but it’s too early to tell exactly how fast those winds will blow and how much rain we’ll get.

One exacerbating factor is the presence of a cold front moving in from the west, which has the potential to produce a rare hybrid weather event—"Frankenstorm," as some forecasters have taken to calling it—that could take days to move through the area.

Sandy is already responsible for 21 deaths across the Caribbean, according to NPR, and NWS meteorologist Paul Kocin told Bloomberg News that this could be a storm unlike any we've seen in awhile.

"What we’re seeing in some of our models is a storm at an intensity that we have not seen in this part of the country in the past century,” Kocin told Bloomberg.

The bizarre confluence of meteorological circumstances prompted The Weather Channel's Brian Norcross to ask: "What the hell is going on?"

"This is a beyond-strange situation. It's unprecedented and bizarre. … The freak part is that a hurricane happens to be in the right place in the world to get sucked into this doubled-back channel of air and pulled inland from the coast," Norcross wrote.

"And the double-freak part is that the upper level wind, instead of weakening the storm and simply absorbing the moisture—which would be annoying enough—is merging with the tropical system to create a monstrous hybrid vortex. A combination of a hurricane and a nor'easter," he added.