59 Years Ago - Today - And I Was There

[SEAZSky]

Ahh - The Good Old Days

I was 13 years old in New York City for this event. The brunt of the storm in the city
was between 5 pm and 10 pm. Record steady-state winds of over 100 mph was (officially)
recorded at the US Weather Bureau station in lower Manhattan on the building roof,
about 15 stories above street level. The rain was heavy, and the windows in my
bedroom at 3 floors high were buckling with each gust - but didn't break - because
my apartment did not directly face the wind. The eye crossed central Long Island
at about 8 pm, moving NNE at a good speed. The next day, I saw numerous trees were blown
down, but not much structural damage in my vicinity. New England states of
Rhode Island, and Massachusetts got hit hard as the eye passed over their coastlines
- curving NE. Since the forward speed was high, not too much structural
damage occurred. The hurricane was downgraded to storm intensity as it plowed NE
passed the Canadian Maritimes - towards the open Atlantic.

The following is from the
NWS-NOAA historical archives..........



The Great Atlantic Hurricane of September 14, 1944

The Great Atlantic hurricane went virtually undetected until September 9, 1944 despite the implementation of aereal reconnaisance the previous year. The storm that was to become the Great Atlantic hurricane was of hurricane intensity when it was first detected several hundred
miles northeast of the Windward Islands.

The hurricane tracked steadily west-northwest over the next several days and underwent a rapid intensification as determined by an aircraft penetration on September 12, 1944. At this time
reconnaisance aircraft reported winds strong enough to shear rivets off the wings of the aircraft.
The "Great Atlantic" hurricane as the storm was referred to in a radio transmission was reported
to have covered a diameter of 600 miles and possessed winds of 150 mph or more. The storm was probably of Category 5 intensity as determined from a central pressure of 909 millibars (26.85 inches of mercury).

The hurricane approached 75 West and began a recurvature which threatened the Mid-Atlantic region. Hurricane warnings were raised for North Carolina and Virginia on the afternoon of September 13th. The hurricane passed very near Cape Hatteras, N.C. shortly after 9:00 am September 14th. The barometric pressure at Cape Hatteras dropped to 947 millibars (27.97
inches of mercury) with the highest winds clocked at 110 mph.

The Great Atlantic Hurricane passed 75 miles to the east of Norfolk just after noon on September 14th. At that time, hurricane force winds swept over portions of extreme southeast Virginia. Winds peaked at 73 mph in downtown Norfolk with gusts to 90 mph. At Cape Henry in Virginia Beach, peak 1-minute winds reached 134 mph with momentary gusts to 150 mph, the highest ever observed at any site during the hurricane. The lowest barometric
pressure reported during the hurricane at Norfolk was 985.7 millibars (29.11 inches of mercury). The high winds were the result of intensive convective activity which occurred in the western semi-circle of the storm. Over 4 inches of rain fell in a three and a half hour period
from 10:00 am to 1:30 pm. Fortunately for the area the hurricane passed at the time of low tide and tides only reached 6.0 feet above MLLW with little or no flooding reported. The bulk of the damage was due to the hurricane force winds which brought down numerous trees in the area.

The great hurricane moved on to produce record wind gusts in Atlantic City, N.J., New York, N.Y. and Block Island, R.I.
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TODAY (2003) IS THE 59th ANNIVERSARY OF "THE GREAT ATLANTIC HURRICANE".

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And - ISABEL may take almost the same path

Stan

[JetMaxx]

And like Isabel, it was a very large hurricane...

It's interesting....first recon flight found a central pressure of 909 mb....indicating a 155 kt cat-5. They flew recon out farther in those days than they do now (first penetration of hurricane Donna in 1960 was near 14 N and 49 W). I venture an educated guess that IF recon had been in the eye of hurricane Isabel last Thursday evening near 55 W, they would have found central pressures in that same range (905-910 mb) and sustained winds of 150+ kts.

The landfall pressure of that 1944 hurricane was 947 mb at Cape Hatteras...it will be quite interesting to see if Isabel has a similar intensity in that area...my guess is yes.