Culture
Hurricane Sandy Is a Category 1 Cyclone, But It Has the Eyewall Of a Category 3
Shiver in fear of this 3-D model of Sandy's eye as the storm nears New Jersey.
Hurricane Sandy hasn't even made landfall, and it's already sandblasting beaches from New Jersey down to Virginia with tropical-storm-force winds. In New York, rooftop cranes are starting to topple – notably this dangling wonder over 57th Street.
Sandy is a category 1 storm on the Saffir-Simpson scale, meaning it's shooting out sustained winds between 74 and 95 m.p.h. But the sea storm's billowing shroud of clouds is concealing a much more potent beast, as NASA found out on Sunday afternoon.