JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – With the political season drawing to a close, there is often talk of an "October surprise" -- usually referring to a last-minute revelation that binds or craters a campaign.
For the last two years in a row, the October Surprise has been a weather phenomenon, that despite its frequency, is really quite unusual.
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It was Hurricane Irene that dominated the headlines just one year ago. That storm, a fading tropical storm at landfall, spared many of the major cities, but walloped Vermont with catastrophic flooding.
No forecaster nor Houdini himself could have predicted a near repeat so soon. But this time, cold air to added to the mix that would have made last year's ghoulish weather -- Snowmaggedon -- look like December flurries.
Hurricane Sandy, nicknamed "Frankenstorm," has killed 69 people in the Caribbean, and Sandy has yet to make her presence felt in the United States. Some estimates are that over $1 billion dollars in damage may be in the offering by the time this freakish storm is over.
Sandy is an unusual system. It's unusual in scope first and foremost; measuring some 1,600 miles at its biggest point -- a distance that would take you from Jacksonville to El Paso, Texas. It's unusual in the amount of people that are set to be affected by its tropical grip -- 50 million by some estimates.
Sandy is unusual in the fact that blizzard warnings -- yes, blizzard -- are in affect for portions of West Virginia and Winter Storm Warnings as far south as North Carolina. It's easy to see how Frankenstorm came to be -- a culmination of many parts that formed one superstorm.
While Northeast Florida was spared much damage, the enormous surf has gouged the beaches leaving behind tremendous beach erosion from St. Augustine northward. Not only was the surf remarkable, but our own George Winterling reported a wind gust at Sanford of 71 mph and a 49 mph gust at Daytona Beach.
As the storm pulls away, we'll be left with our coldest temperatures of the year as the counter-clockwise flow around Sandy continues to pump in cold air from the Midwest. The weather around greater Jacksonville will be absolutely spook-tacular heading into Halloween and the first few days of November.
Even though there were a lot of named storms in the 2012 Atlantic hurricane season, Sandy is definitely the exclamation point on a very busy season.