Hurricane Trivia Quiz Questions With Answers

Trivia quiz with answers about Hurricane Sandy

Hurricane Trivia Quiz Questions With Answers

What was Hurricane Sandy?
A: Hurricane Sandy was the deadliest and most destructive hurricane of the 2012 Atlantic hurricane season.

Inflicting nearly $70 billion (2012 USD) in damage, it was the second-costliest hurricane on record in the United States until surpassed by what?
A: Hurricanes Harvey and Maria in 2017.

The eighteenth named storm, tenth hurricane, and second major hurricane of the year, Sandy was what Category storm at its peak intensity when it made landfall in Cuba?
A: Category 3.

While it was a Category 2 hurricane off the coast of the Northeastern United States, the storm became what?
A: The largest Atlantic hurricane on record (as measured by diameter, with tropical-storm-force winds spanning 900 miles (1,400 km)).

How many people were killed along the path of the storm in eight countries?
A: At least 233.

Sandy developed from what?
A: A tropical wave in the western Caribbean Sea on October 22, quickly strengthened, and was upgraded to Tropical Storm Sandy six hours later.

Sandy moved slowly northward toward the Greater Antilles and gradually what?
A: Intensified.

On October 24, Sandy became a what?
A: A hurricane, made landfall near Kingston, Jamaica, re-emerged a few hours later into the Caribbean Sea and strengthened into a Category 2 hurricane.

On October 25, Sandy hit Cuba as a Category 3 hurricane, then weakened to a what?
A: A Category 1 hurricane.

Early on October 26, Sandy moved through where?
A: The Bahamas.

On October 27, Sandy briefly weakened to a what?
A: A tropical storm and then restrengthened to a Category 1 hurricane.

Early on October 29, Sandy curved west-northwest (the "left turn" or "left hook") and then moved ashore near where?
A: Brigantine, New Jersey, just to the northeast of Atlantic City, as a post-tropical cyclone with hurricane-force winds.

In Jamaica, winds left 70% of residents without electricity, blew roofs off buildings, killed one person, and caused how much damage?
A: About $100 million (2012 USD) in damage.

Sandy's outer bands brought flooding to Haiti, killing how many people?
A: at least 54.

How many people were left homeless?
A: About 200,000.

The hurricane also caused how many deaths in the Dominican Republic?
A: Two.

In Puerto Rico, one man was swept away by a what?
A: A swollen river.

In Cuba, there was extensive coastal flooding and wind damage inland, destroying how many homes?
A: Some 15,000 homes.

How many were killed?
A: 11.

How much damage was caused?
A: Causing $2 billion (2012 USD) in damage.

Where did Sandy cause two deaths and an estimated $700 million (2012 USD) in damage?
A: In the Bahamas.

In the United States, Hurricane Sandy affected how many states?
A: 24.

Its storm surge hit New York City on what date?
A: October 29, flooding streets, tunnels and subway lines and cutting power in and around the city.

Damage in the United States amounted to how much?
A: $65 billion (2012 USD).

When was the system named Tropical Storm Sandy?
A: Late on October 22.

Early on October 24, an eye began developing, and it was moving steadily northward due to what?
A: An approaching trough.

Later that day, the National Hurricane Center (NHC) upgraded Sandy to what?
A: Hurricane status about 65 mi (105 km) south of Kingston, Jamaica.

At about 1900 UTC that day, Sandy made landfall near where?
A: Kingston with winds of about 85 mph (140 km/h).

Just offshore Cuba, Sandy rapidly intensified to winds of what speed?
A: 115 mph (185 km/h), and at that intensity it made landfall just west of Santiago de Cuba at 0525 UTC on October 25.

By October 27, Sandy was no longer fully tropical, as evidenced by the development of what?
A: Frontal structures in the outer circulation.

After briefly weakening to a tropical storm, Sandy re-intensified into a hurricane, and on October 28 what happened?
A: An eye began redeveloping.

Sandy briefly re-intensified to Category 2 intensity on the morning of October 29, around which time it had become an extremely large hurricane with a wind diameter of what?
A: Over 1,000 miles (1,609 km), and an unusually low central barometric pressure of 940 mbar, possibly due to the very large size of the system.

This pressure set records for many cities across the Northeastern United States for what?
A: For the lowest pressures ever observed.

The convection diminished while the hurricane accelerated toward where?
A: The New Jersey coast, and the cyclone was no longer tropical by 2100 UTC on October 29.

About 2½ hours later, Sandy made landfall where?
A: Near Brigantine, New Jersey, with winds of 80 mph (130 km/h).

During the next four days, Sandy's remnants drifted northward and then northeastward over Ontario, before merging with what?
A: Another low pressure area over Eastern Canada on November 2.

On October 23, 2012, the path of Hurricane Sandy was correctly predicted by whom?
A: The European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) headquartered in Reading, England nearly eight days in advance of its striking the American East Coast.

The computer model noted that the storm would turn west towards land and strike what?
A: The New York/New Jersey region on October 29, rather than turn east and head out to the open Atlantic as most hurricanes in this position do.

By October 27, four days after the ECMWF made its prediction, the National Weather Service and National Hurricane Center confirmed what?
A: The path of the hurricane predicted by the European model.

The National Weather Service was criticized for not doing what?
A: Employing its higher-resolution forecast models the way that its European counterpart did.

A hardware and software upgrade completed at the end of 2013 enabled the weather service to do what?
A: To make more accurate predictions, and do so far more in advance than the technology in 2012 had allowed.

According to NCAR senior climatologist Kevin E. Trenberth, "The answer to the oft-asked question of whether an event is caused by climate change is what?
A: It’ that it is the wrong question.

All weather events are affected by climate change because the environment in which they occur is what?
A: Warmer and moister than it used to be.

One factor contributing to the storm's strength was what?
A: Abnormally warm sea surface temperatures offshore the East Coast of the United States—more than 3 °C (5 °F) above normal, to which global warming had contributed 0.6 °C (1 °F).

As the temperature of the atmosphere increases, the capacity to hold water does what?
A: It increases, leading to stronger storms and higher rainfall amounts.

As they move north, Atlantic hurricanes typically are forced where by the Prevailing Westerlies?
A: East and out to sea.

In Sandy's case, this typical pattern was blocked by what?
A: A ridge of high pressure over Greenland resulting in a negative North Atlantic Oscillation, forming a kink in the jet stream, causing it to double back on itself off the East Coast.

The blocking pattern over Greenland also stalled what?
A: An Arctic front which combined with the cyclone.

Mark Fischetti of Scientific American said that the jet stream's unusual shape was caused by what?
A: The melting of Arctic ice.

Sea level at New York and along the New Jersey coast has increased by how much over the last hundred years, which contributed to the storm surge?
A: Nearly a foot (300 mm).

Harvard geologist Daniel P. Schrag calls Hurricane Sandy's 13-foot (4 m) storm surge an example of what will, by mid-century, be what?
A: The "new norm on the Eastern seaboard".