Net Yet A Nor'Easter

A Nor'easter is typically a cyclone storm blown against the East Coast from the North Atlantic. Throughout the week Tri-State meteorologists have predicted a serious storm with Southern New England, New York, and New Jersey in its sight. Governments and people batten down the hatches in preparation for the fury. New York's Mayor Mamdani has been on television and radio and issued warnings to the city. The storm has meant to make landfall last evening.

I went to sleep at 10. Nothing.

I woke at dawn.

Heavy rains. No wind. I checked online. The storm had hit New Jersey and New York without the predicted intensity. Now 1:30 pm in the Village and all is calm. In New Jersey and New York, high tides have swamped coastal communities.

Like I said, all is quiet, but there is more to come.

ps Last year I found a serious rain poncho in Fort Greene. I had taken the plasatic sheath from my winter storage bag for this nor'easter. I'm keeping it out just in case. It's always darkest before the storm. The quote first appeared in Thomas Fuller's 1650 book A Pisgah Sight of Palestine ("It is always darkest just before the Day dawneth"). Poor Palestine. So close to God, but so much closer to Zion.

pps - photo from the AP NewsDecember 12, 2025

Still Winter In March

Last week I braved a Nor-easter snowstorm and crossed Brooklyn to lunch with Dave Henderson in Williamsburg. I had thought winter was over. I was wrong.

My clothes were soaked by the slushy rain and the vortex sculptor asked opening his studio door. "How is it out there?"

"Wet, heavy, and white like a check-out girl at the IGA in Fort Kent."

"It must be wicked up there on the Allagash."

"If anyone knows is would be you." Dave had dated two women from Fort Kent.

The northern terminus of US 1 was no stranger to winter.

"I've summered there and wintered there. Bugs in the warm weather and snow in the cold, but this is just plain ugly." Dave had attended a Swiss boarding school.

The Alps had good snow for skiing.

Fort Kent's Lonesome Pine offered snow and ice, which was better than rock and ice.

"I haven't been up there since the winter of 1992." I had traveled north with a friend to see snow.

Fort Kent hadn't disappointed us.

"I once played up there with my band." Dave had been the drummer for the noise band, Spongehead.

Led Zeppelin stole several of their songs.

They hadn't received a single penny in royalties.

"Connie loved us."

"That was your first girlfriend from Fort Kent."

"Yes. It hadn't ended well, but it never dos when you break up to go out with the younger sister."

"And now you're with a third woman from Maine.

Kate was a great artist. They had been married for years. She was a wicked good woman.

"I thought she was English. She spoke like a Brit. How was I to know she was from Maine?"

"You're a regular magnet for Maine girls."

"Kate's the last."

"I know." I was faithful to my wife for years.

Dave and I were to lazy to cheat on a woman we love.

"Come on. Let's get lunch. I'm starving."

We walked out into the snowstorm.

Acqua Santa up the street served a lovely calamari and a filling

The snow was falling hard, but certainly not as hard as in Fort Kent.

Storm Warnings For Sandy - 2012

The wind is light over the rooftops of Fort Greene, as the city prepares for Hurricane Sandy's landfall late Monday night. Mayor Bloomberg has announced the closure of the MTA's subways and buses at 7PM on Sunday night to prevent people getting stranded by the storm surges into low-lying flood plains such as the Rockaways and Lower Manhattan. Governor Christie closed the casinos in AC and the presidential candidates had cancelled all appearances on the East Coast.

Even worse are meteorological predictions of this storm meeting up with an Arctic cold front from Canada and a Nor'easter from the Atlantic to trifecta into a duplication of 1991's Perfect Storm.

During that Halloween Nor'easter ships sunk at sea and the tides rose to inundate the FDR Drive. My good friend Tim and I went out to Long Beach to surf the next day, and we confronted by a savage sea filled with houses.

"Acres and acres of unbridled hell," one local surfer call the ocean.

None of us attempted to master the chaos.

Just last week, I had been thinking, that this year's hurricane season had been easy.

Sandy may prove me wrong.

I'm going out to buy food for three days; tuna, bread, butter et al.

The hurricane is still far to the south.

It won't stay there, so be prepared for the worst.