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http://12160.info/video/live-hurricane-sandy-coverage-the-weather-channel

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Weather forecasters said the worst of the category one storm will affect the mid-Atlantic states all the way up to New England with winds up to 85 miles per hour. Some areas could face up to 12 inches of rain while some, likely in the Appalachian Mountains from West Virginia to Kentucky, with 2 feet of snow.

By Monday morning, at 8 a.m. EST the storm was located 265 miles southeast of Atlantic City, N.J., and about 310 miles south-southeast of New York City moving north-northwest at about 20 miles an hour, according to the National Weather Service,

US President Barack Obama announced on Sunday that U.S. resident should take all necessary precautions to protect themselves from Hurricane Sandy and has even cancelled part of his campaign trip in Florida to return to Washington to monitor the storm.

"This is a serious and big storm," Obama said during a briefing at the federal government's storm response center in Washington. "We don't yet know where it's going to hit, where we're going to see the biggest impacts."

On Monday, many schools were closed by officials and airlines ceasing flight activity. In New York City, Mayor Michael Bloomberg evacuated the low-lying areas of the city, namely lower Manhattan which encompasses over 375,000 people. The New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) was also closed on Monday along with the NASDAQ, the first time since 1985's Hurricane Gloria. Traders said trading will still happen electronically.

As well as closures, Sandy also halted more than 8,000 airline flights. Transit systems in New York, New Jersey and Philadelphia were closed on Sunday for precautions to the storm. The Maryland transit system, which serves some of Washington D.C., also did not open Monday. National passenger rail service Amtrak also closed its service on the East Coast Monday.

Washington and Boston, though, said its transit systems would operate as usual on Monday unless otherwise noted.

Weather forecasters called Hurricane Sandy a rare "super storm" which was caused by an Arctic jet stream wrapped around a tropical storm.

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