25 replies to this topic

[Lowerdeck]

While many passing hurricanes go by to the coast off Cape Cod along the Gulf Stream (or farther east being pushed by fronts, as is the case with Chantal), there have been some which have gone straight up along the coastline and have slammed into southern New England and Long Island.  38 is not so much of a rarity as you might think.

Gloria for example in 1985 made landfall on Long Island, then again at Milford CT.  Floyd in 1999, though a Tropical Storm at the time, passed directly over parts of Long Island and then central and eastern Connecticut.  Some T.S. a few years back made landfall near New Bedford MA.

[cloudship]

This is an interesting graphic - part of a arger one that shows the tracks of all the hurricanes since 1900. This is the New England area. Alas I do not have the key to the colors, I believe that light blue or green is a tropical storm, and they get darker going into yellows and reds from there are strength increases. So yes, we do get them, but they are rarely very strong. What is most interesting is how similar the paths are.

[Lowerdeck]

The darker blue is Tropical Depression.  The lighter blue is Tropical Storm.  The pale yellow is Cat 1, and the more intense the yellow orange is Cat 2-3.

I believe the one near Hartford is Gloria, the one at the mouth of the Narragansett Bay is Bob.  I'm not going to sort the rest out.  Some of them were moving so fast but having strong intensity, they aren't shown on this map.

[runawayjim]

Lowerdeck, on Aug 1 2007, 07:13 PM, said:

The darker blue is Tropical Depression.  The lighter blue is Tropical Storm.  The pale yellow is Cat 1, and the more intense the yellow orange is Cat 2-3.

I believe the one near Hartford is Gloria, the one at the mouth of the Narragansett Bay is Bob.  I'm not going to sort the rest out.  Some of them were moving so fast but having strong intensity, they aren't shown on this map.

was bob that strong when it made landfall in new england?  if it's since 1900, i would think the one by narragansett bay is '38 since that was definitely a cat3 when it hit (and it makes sense on location considering what it did to providence).  i would guess that the green one over SE MA is bob.

[Cotuit]

Bob came up Buzzards Bay making landfall on the western shore near New Bedford. Storm surge in Buzzards Bay was up to 15 feet and numerous homes were destroyed in Bourne, Wareham, and Mattapoisett. It had 100 mph sustained winds when it made landfall in Massachusetts, with max gusts at 125 mph. Bob was a weak storm but it wrecked havoc across the Cape and Islands. Narragansett Bay had about a 10 foot surge and power was lost across much of the state, but the Cape bore the brunt (being on the east side of the storm). Damage was also significant in Maine, where it made a second landfall near Portland as a tropical storm. Bringing Portland its highest 24 hour rainfall (over 8 inches).  

Bob was a rather minor storm as storms go, had it made landfall further west, it would have had a much greater impact on large population centers in Providence and Boston. People on the Cape were without power for weeks, and it effectively ended the tourist season, but had Boston been without power and cleaning up for weeks, it would have had a much greater impact on the economy.

Building codes are better than they were in '38, but there's many more buildings, it only takes one poorly built building to fail, then have wind and surge driven debris crash into other buildings. Most importantly our forecasting has improved, in '38 no one knew the storm was coming. Today we have plenty of time to get out of harms way, but will people? Gloria was a dud and Bob didn't unleash its full furry on very much of the Southern New England population. We've had 2 storms in the modern era that were kind of laughable, and not many people remember '38 or Carol in '54.

[Lowerdeck]

runawayjim, on Aug 1 2007, 08:02 PM, said:

was bob that strong when it made landfall in new england?  if it's since 1900, i would think the one by narragansett bay is '38 since that was definitely a cat3 when it hit (and it makes sense on location considering what it did to providence).  i would guess that the green one over SE MA is bob.

I'm just going by what it shows on Wikipedia.