WATCH: Residents Get Ready for Hurricane Sandy, AKA 'Frankenstorm'

Video by Brandon Goldner for Capital News Service. 

According to the National Weather Service (NWS), Wheaton residents have some time this weekend to prepare for what could be a 100-year hurricane early next week.

There is a slight chance of rain Saturday; otherwise, expect cloudy skies and temperatures in the mid-60s.

But by Sunday morning Hurricane Sandy is expected to be off the coast of the Carolinas on a northbound trajectory. Forecasters see Sandy coming onshore sometime late Sunday or Monday, according to NWS meteorologist Jason Elliott, but the DC metropolitan region should feel the impact ahead of that. 

"After Sunday," he said, "things keep going downhill.” 

Sign up for the Wheaton Patch newsletter and breaking news alerts to get updates on the storm.

The area should expect “at least” tropical storm-force winds across the area and heavy rain, Elliott said, but it’s too early to tell exactly how fast those winds will blow and how much rain we’ll get.

Sandy is already responsible for 21 deaths across the Caribbean, according to NPR, and NWS meteorologist Paul Kocin told Bloomberg News that this could be a storm unlike any we've seen in awhile.

"What we’re seeing in some of our models is a storm at an intensity that we have not seen in this part of the country in the past century,” Kocin told Bloomberg.