Australia's weather today been quite calm due to a weak pressure pattern across the country, a stark contrast to the devastating storm battering much of the eastern United States. A super storm made landfall near New Jersey on the North American east coast today bringing a massive storm surge, destructive winds, heavy rain leading to flooding and blizzards. The super storm was originally known as Hurricane Sandy, but due its collision with a strong cold front it has become a super storm as it is now drawing its power from temperature differences rather than the ocean. The storm has been nicknamed Frankenstorm due its combination of storms just before Halloween. This system is huge and dwarfs Australia's most famous cyclones. Cyclone Yasi that hit the Queensland coast in February 2011 was a large category 5 Tropical Cyclone just before it made landfall. There are reports that it's peak gusts were 285km/h and the region with gale force winds was 500-600km across. In comparison to Yasi, Frankenstorm is likely to only have peak gusts around 140-160km/h. However the shear size of this system is staggering, with the region of gale force winds approximately 1500km across. That is the equivalent of gale force winds stretching from roughly Brisbane to Adelaide. The most dangerous aspect of this system is the storm surge which peaked at 9:24pm local time at 13.88 feet (over 4 metres) at The Battery, New York. This is almost four feet higher than the previous record at this location set by Hurricane Donna in 1960. The storm surge has been so large due to the giant fetch created by the Hurricane over recent days. The timing of the storm surge unfortunately coincided with high tide leading to an even higher peak than expected. The super storm will continue to affect the eastern U.S. and Canada for days to come as the system slowly tracks north carrying heavy rainfall and strong winds further inland.