Actually, Sandy's track and that it would combine with other weather systems (a cold front from Canada and a "trough" moving east from the Pacific NW) to, among many other things, dump considerable snow on the Appalachians, was forecast as early as 6 days beforehand. Blog from Univ. of Washington Atmospheric Sciences Department professor.

One problem is that the US NWS uses a forecast model that is far inferior to the EU's model. The EU model predicted Sandy doing exactly what it did, while the US model initially had it going out to sea. That doesn't mean that the NWS was unaware of the EU model, but they may not have included it in their local forecasts. Also, of course, many of us are skeptical about weather forecasts and especially the many reporters who tend to hype every storm as "the storm of the century."

However, since press reports never give the whole story and are often quite inaccurate, we have no way of knowing this hiker's circumstances and what really happened. It's good to study the situation for lessons to learn for the rest of us, though!