Monday Morning - Where oh where is Sandy?

Actually, I know exactly where Sandy is - heading for the New Jersey coast.  But the point is, she's not here.  It rained in the night, hard at times, but now it's drizzling and there's a little wind.  Smaller branches are shaking and the heads of the marsh grass are waving, but nothing to speak of.  Still, the Boston Globe reports that already there are power outages on the North Shore (and the South Shore and Cape Cod) The wind is supposed to pick up about 10am. High tide (with storm surge)  is at 11:40.

The weather reports are very confusing.  Massachusetts has declared a state of emergency. Schools and public offices are closed. Logan Airport is open, but many flights have been cancelled. Public transportation is running but only 'as long as it's safe to do so' and some trains have been cancelled. The expected storm surges along the coast are expected to be at their worst from midday today until sometime tomorrow.  There are all kinds of dire predictions in the Globe.

And yet, it's raining slightly and only a little windy.  NOAA is predicting the hurricane will get here in 3 to 5 days, though other maps show us currently on the edge of the 800 mile radius of the storm.  It's a little hard to make sense of this. Is all the alarm premature?  Is what we have now, the Nor'easter part of the Frankenstorm, with the heavy rain and wind of the hurricane still to come?

Here is a little video taken from the back deck just now. (I'm told this may be flash because it doesn't show up on the ipad).

And here is a photo just taken from the front steps.