Metro

Hurricane Sandy expected to dump rain, snow on the city, cause $1B in damage

Hurricane Sandy will morph into a “Frankenstorm” that will likely dump 5 inches or more of rain — and possibly snow — on the city and cause $1 billion in damage on its path up the coast, forecasters said yesterday.

Chances the Category 2 storm would shear off to the northeast into the Atlantic fell sharply as meteorologists said it was much likelier to turn northwest, into land.

That translates to a 90 percent chance the New Jersey-to-New England coast will get steady gale-force winds, heavy rain and flooding.

The hurricane last night was responsible for at least 22 deaths across the Caribbean.

Late last night, Sandy’s center was about 185 miles east-southeast of Freeport, Bahamas, and the storm had a 1,500-mile diameter and maximum sustained winds of 90 mph.

Worsening the situation is that Sandy is expected to collide with an early winter storm — arctic air from the north — and create a crisis like the “Perfect Storm” of 1991, when Hurricane Grace turned into a nor’easter and killed 13 people from Oct. 26 to Halloween.

Add to that the effect of a full moon Monday and you get even higher high tides to aggravate a storm surge.

Forecasters said they couldn’t recall anything like it.

“This could certainly be a storm for the ages,” AccuWeather’s John Feerick said. “It could be quite a whopper.”

The ’91 storm only nipped New England, but Frankenstorm is set to make a direct hit on land and park itself over the Northeast for days.

“It’s almost a weeklong, five-day, six-day event,” said National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration forecaster Jim Cisco.

The best guess now is Sandy will transform into a nor’easter when it comes ashore, probably Tuesday morning, in central New Jersey.

“If the storm does go into New Jersey, that would be bad news for the New York City area,” Feerick said.

“It would funnel all that water from the ocean into the city and Long Island with coastal flooding.”

Mayor Bloomberg cautioned: “The forecasters say it could be dangerous, but I think the word they’ve been using is unpredictable. There’s no reason to panic.”

Jeff Masters, meteorology director of the Web site Weather Underground, said it could be “a billion-dollar disaster.”

“The [’91] Perfect Storm only did $200 million of damage, and I’m thinking a billion,” he said.