Red Bull Storm Chase not chasing Hurricane Sandy

With the formation of a late season tropical storm turned hurrican Sandy in the Carribean, it seemed like a sure thing that the first event of the 2012 Red Bull Storm Chase would be in Cape Hatteras this weekend.  The convergence of high winds and big waves from a hurricane just off shore 0n a weekend seemed too perfect to be true.  With the potential track of Sandy coming very close to Cape Hatteras, the Storm Chase organizers are concerned that the competitors, judges and cameras would arrive in North Carolina just in time to be stuck on the in-land side of closed roads and no one wants to spend the weekend in a motel 6 a hundred miles from the coast, listening to it rain.  The official word from the Storm Chase facebook page is:

Update for Hatteras: Impossible to give a “Go”. 🙁

Here’s the story: Earlier this week the meteo team noticed Sandy, a storm system off the coast from Florida. Until yesterday night the projections looked like it would stay away from coast…

al areas. This forecast has changed over the night. Window of opportunity for the competition would be Friday and Saturday – less than three days from now. Here’s the biggest problem with such a short notice: Roads and bridges to Hatteras will be closed quite some time before the ETA of the storm.

Guys, speaking from the bottom of our hearts: We’re really sorry we don’t have better news.

We just don’t want to risk messing the first mission up. The worst thing that could happen is to issue a “Go” when there’s a lot of risk that part of the competitors and crew might not be able to arrive at the destination.

The storm season in Hatteras is just getting started. Let’s keep chasing to find the right one!