Northeast Airports Escape Major Wind Damage from Irene

Isabel Goyer

Tuesday, August 30, 2011 at 08:54 PM ET

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Key Takeaways:

Hurricane Irene's winds rapidly dissipated after making landfall, largely sparing major East Coast airports, especially in the New York metro area, from the feared severe wind damage.
In contrast, inland airports from New Jersey to Vermont experienced significant flooding, leading to closures and ongoing operational disruptions.
Despite the inland flooding, coastal airports and aircraft along the East Coast ultimately "dodged a bullet" as the storm's most destructive potential (wind damage) was mitigated.

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The massive storm that was Hurricane Irene spared the East Coast much of the damage that had been feared, as its winds dissipated shortly after it made landfall in North Carolina on Saturday, its energy diffused by wind shear and starved of moisture by dry continental air once it made landfall. All three major airports in the New York metro area were closed for the storm, disrupting traffic throughout the nation, and the world — our Stephen Pope was stuck in Brazil for an extra two days as his Washington, D.C.-bound flight was grounded in Sao Paulo.

But there was little damage to the airports. In the end, Irene was similar in effect in New York City to a massive Nor’easter.