Rutgers robot’s Sandy mission may aid hurricane forecasts

While everyone at the Jersey Shore was putting gasoline in their cars and tying down patio furniture the weekend before superstorm Sandy, Rutgers University graduate students Greg Seroka and Travis Miles tracked their robot swimming around in the storm’s path. In the days that followed, they got a rare glimpse into erupting undersea conditions as the storm swept ashore. Data the probe collected — including currents and sharp drops in sea surface temperature — might help scientists reconstruct Sandy’s behavior and better predict how hurricanes change in the critical hours before landfall.