The photo on the left is a screenshot of Hurricane Irene, taken from the Weather Channel's iPad app. The photo on the right side shows the same app screen of Hurricane Sandy, taken today at 1:20 p.m.

Last year, New York City boarded up its stores and shut down its subways in preparation for the worst of Hurricane Irene. While the outer boroughs experienced heavy flooding and power outages, the storm didn't have the impact on Manhattan that meteorologists had projected and the city had prepared for.

So when warnings of Hurricane Sandy flooded the nightly news, some New Yorkers compared the storm to that of Irene. But the side-by-side illustration above shows that the size of Hurricane Irene pales to that of Sandy, a system that is also dubbed "Frankenstorm."

Similarly, this GIF also shows the two storms' size as they raged toward the Eastern coastline.

More Coverage of Hurricane Sandy