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Speaker 1: Welcome to brain Stuff from house stuff works dot com

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Speaker 1: where smart Happens. Hi Am Marshall Brain with today's question,

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Speaker 1: what is a northeaster? Nor Easter's can occur in the

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Speaker 1: eastern United States anytime between October and April, when moisture

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Speaker 1: and cold air are plentiful. They're known for dumping heavy

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Speaker 1: amounts of rain and snow, producing hurricane force winds and

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Speaker 1: creating high surfs that cause severe beach erosion and coastal flooding. Obviously,

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Speaker 1: this looks a lot like a hurricane, so when a

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Speaker 1: big nor Easter comes through, it's gonna make the news.

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Speaker 1: A nor easter is named for the winds that blow

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Speaker 1: in from the northeast and drive the storm up the

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Speaker 1: East coast along the Gulf Stream. The Gulf Stream is

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Speaker 1: a band of warm water that lies off the Atlantic

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Speaker 1: coast of the United States. There are two main components

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Speaker 1: to a northeaster. First, there's the Gulf Stream low pressure system.

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Speaker 1: These systems generate off the coast of Florida. The air

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Speaker 1: above the Gulf Stream warms and spawns a low pressure system.

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Speaker 1: This low circulates off the southeastern US coast, gathering warm

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Speaker 1: air and moisture from the Atlantic Ocean. Strong northeasterly winds

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Speaker 1: at the leading edge of the storm pull it up

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Speaker 1: the East coast. Second, there's an Arctic high pressure system.

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Speaker 1: As the strong northeasterly winds pull the storm up the coast,

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Speaker 1: it meets with cold Arctic air blowing down from Canada.

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Speaker 1: When the two systems collide, the moisture and cold air

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Speaker 1: produce a mix of precipitation and a lot of wind.

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Speaker 1: Winter conditions make nor easters a normal occurrence, but only

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Speaker 1: a handful actually gather the force and power to cause

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Speaker 1: problems inland. The resulting precipitation depends on how close you

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Speaker 1: are to the converging point of the two storms. A

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Speaker 1: powerful nor'easter can bring travel to a standstill, closing city

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Speaker 1: streets and making it nearly impossible to get any where

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Speaker 1: for days. The thing to remember with northeasters is that

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Speaker 1: the storm systems occur frequently, but only a few of

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Speaker 1: them are powerful enough to make it into the news.

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Speaker 1: There are two types of northeaster's offshore forming. These are

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Speaker 1: the storms you hear about in the news. It's a

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Speaker 1: newsworthy storm that moves east of the East coast cities

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Speaker 1: dumping lots of heavy snow. In an offshore farming storm.

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Speaker 1: The hardest hit metropolitan areas are likely to be Washington,

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Speaker 1: d C, Philadelphia, New York City, in Boston. Eventually, the

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Speaker 1: system moves far enough north that the Canadian jet stream

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Speaker 1: pushes it off the coast, and then there's onshore farming.

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Speaker 1: These storms are less exciting than offshore farming storms. They

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Speaker 1: move west of east coast cities with gusting winds and

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Speaker 1: mostly rain. For more on this and thousands of other topics,

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Speaker 1: doesn't house stuff works dot com and don't forget to

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Speaker 1: check out the brain stuff blog on the house stuff

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