I hope all of our friends, family, and everyone else in the path of Sandy, can get to a place of security and safety for the next few days.

Good luck!

But to try and keep our hopes high, and past the time waiting for good news, I have wondered if the Paizo Creative Staff, have wondered what would be the reaction, for the good citizens and their not so good neighbors, should a Hurricane bear down on our favorite little coastal village.

They would shut down the Catacombs of... oh, right.

Wiped from the map. Creates more room for another community to begin by the hands of another race.

I believe hurricanes in the northern hemisphere generally move from southeast to northwest, so Sandpoint is an extremely unlikely place to be hit.

If you did get an atypical hurricane somehow moving southwest to northeast, it would almost certainly have to hit Magnimar first, and the damage to poor Sandpoint would be largely overlooked as a result.

Y'know, some of the potential shelters are also places that most folks would be really uncomfortable staying in.

I bet the Pit over on the Devil's Platter is nice and cozy during a storm. What could possibly go wrong?

I believe hurricanes in the northern hemisphere generally move from southeast to northwest, so Sandpoint is an extremely unlikely place to be hit.

If you did get an atypical hurricane somehow moving southwest to northeast, it would almost certainly have to hit Magnimar first, and the damage to poor Sandpoint would be largely overlooked as a result.

Yeah-- Sandpoint seems to be positioned to have an analogous position on Avistan as Portland, Oregon in North America. If Golarion's weather patterns are analogous to Earth's then the prevailing winds wouldn't carry a hurricane or typhoon there, except in extremely strange circumstances.

Of course, that's not counting an evil high-level Druid with a control weather spell.

Yeah-- Sandpoint seems to be positioned to have an analogous position on Avistan as Portland, Oregon in North America.

Same latitude, I think, although to the extent Avistan corresponds to any land mass on Earth it would be Europe rather than North America. That would seem to place it in the Bay of Biscay, perhaps near La Rochelle, France...which I guess isn't as storm-free as I had supposed.

The problem with weather patterns, of course, is that they are affected by so many more things than latitude and what coast your town happens to be on. Golarion mave have the same size, mass, gravity, axial tilt, and rate of rotation as Earth but it doesn't have the same surface geography, which is a huge factor. And Aroden's death may have broken prophecy, but meteorological predications wouldn't have been reliable even when he was alive.

It was stated the weather and climate of much of Varisia is Pacific Northwest. But Arcadia is analogous to North America.

But anyway... it depends on which direction weather systems travel on Golarion.

I lived in Florida 14 years... The worst year for me was 2004 with Charley, Frances and Jeanne destroying my house.

Hurricanes need open warm water. The Steaming Sea might fit the bill... but do weather systems head east to west off of Avistan? Or west to east? You'd only get the hurricanes in that location if it is west to east, or if it started off the Southern coast of Garund, and circled around to slam into Varisia. Maybe the tropical wave comes off Arcadia, makes it across and organizes from there. (The northwest Garund coast makes an unlikely hurricane source... the weather systems likely merge with and fuel the Eye.)

The direction might also be different between Avistan and Garund.

Now, the Inner Sea might be more susceptible to hurricanes. So Cheliax, Andoran, etc...

For Varisia.. I could see a version of the nor'easter being common. Except if the climate is PNW, it would already get tons of rain. I'm in NW Montana right now and we get PNW amounts of rain here.

Sandpoint would be wiped out. It doesn't have enough really sturdy structures, no castle, not much stone. The glassworks becomes a wave of glass shurikens, hitting everything. Thistletop will survive though, all that stone.

Goblins found a new town in the ruins?

... The glassworks becomes a wave of glass shurikens, hitting everything....

That had me cackling for a few minutes. Awesome mental picture.

Hurricane Comes, Everyone Dies?

If anything, hurricanes just wouldn't hit Avistan. They would form off the coast of Garund, but they would be mostly Southern hemisphere hurricanes because the Eye of Abendego would kill any storm that might form before it got too big. Storms would probably also form off the western coast of Tian Xia and drift west towards Vudra. This is all assuming that the weather patterns and ocean currents are similar to Earth. If not, hey anything can happen. Anything can happen anyways if Gozreh decides he doesn't like your seaside village.

There is always "The Day After Tomorrow" scenario or the "2012" scenario.