In the larger picture most people forget the reason Sandy caused such a mess.
Although 'just' an extra-tropical storm by the time it hit New York, it arrived at not just the daily high tide, which would have been bad enough, but at the monthly high tide. Throw some storm surge on top of that and you have a recipe for flooding.
From the Financial Times:
Commodity traders are closely watching the progress of Hurricane Joaquin as it has strengthened over the past few days and is heading towards the north-east coast of America.
According to the US government’s National Hurricane Center, the hurricane — currently coming out of the Bahamas — is showing “a track toward Long Island and southern New England in five days”.
The current hurricane season, which runs from June to the end of November, has seen very few strong storms because of the impact of the El Niño weather phenomenon, which tends to reduce the number of Atlantic storms.
Nevertheless, over the years, hurricanes have influenced commodities markets from energy to orange juice.
Atlantic hurricanes can be mildly bullish for energy markets as oil and gas platforms could be shut down as a precaution. They could also damage infrastructure, such as refineries and transportation....MORE
And from Wunderblog:
