Glenn Rivers
EF1
I personally remember the Nov 10, 1998 964 mb superstorm mentioned by “rdeweyâ€, even though in S Ontario were I live, sustained hourly winds held to 35-40mph with 3 second gusts of 60 mph for typical airport exposures.
The superstorm on Nov 1998 storm had an uncanny resemblance to an even greater but almost identical bomb that occurred on Nov 11, 1940. In the former event, lowest SLP reached about 955mb over Central Lake Superior. Some of the differences were......
-The track of the 1940 event was perhaps 50-100 miles to the right (SE)
of the 98’ event.
-Also, the 40’ event had much colder air in its wake, and produced much more heavy snow to the NW of its track than the 98’ storm.
Many Great Lakes mariners consider the Nov 1940 storm more violent then even the Nov 1913 storm that took over 200 seamen on Lake Huron. Large freighters were driven ashore in the 40’ storm, with significant loss of life, especially after they made the mistake of hugging the E shore of Michigan to seek shelter from the prefrontal SE gales, only to be caught exposed to the murderous tempest that commenced from the SSW behind the cold-front.
After the cold front passed Lake Michigan, the wind settled into a remarkably steady blast from ~210° for several hours. These winds were directed only slightly askew from the length of Lake Michigan, creating conditions for waves with a long fetch. I recall reading that there was a ∆ storm setup of 6 feet near the Mackinaw straits compared to the S end of lake. It might be constructive to compare the setup from the 98’ storm to that of its 40’ counterpart, especially as the time sequence of wind directions was similar in both storms. This exercise might allow a reasonable reconstruction of the wind and wave fields during the 40’
storm.
An interesting counterpart of the Nov 1913 storm also occured in Nov 1950, but I will save this discusion for another time.
The superstorm on Nov 1998 storm had an uncanny resemblance to an even greater but almost identical bomb that occurred on Nov 11, 1940. In the former event, lowest SLP reached about 955mb over Central Lake Superior. Some of the differences were......
-The track of the 1940 event was perhaps 50-100 miles to the right (SE)
of the 98’ event.
-Also, the 40’ event had much colder air in its wake, and produced much more heavy snow to the NW of its track than the 98’ storm.
Many Great Lakes mariners consider the Nov 1940 storm more violent then even the Nov 1913 storm that took over 200 seamen on Lake Huron. Large freighters were driven ashore in the 40’ storm, with significant loss of life, especially after they made the mistake of hugging the E shore of Michigan to seek shelter from the prefrontal SE gales, only to be caught exposed to the murderous tempest that commenced from the SSW behind the cold-front.
After the cold front passed Lake Michigan, the wind settled into a remarkably steady blast from ~210° for several hours. These winds were directed only slightly askew from the length of Lake Michigan, creating conditions for waves with a long fetch. I recall reading that there was a ∆ storm setup of 6 feet near the Mackinaw straits compared to the S end of lake. It might be constructive to compare the setup from the 98’ storm to that of its 40’ counterpart, especially as the time sequence of wind directions was similar in both storms. This exercise might allow a reasonable reconstruction of the wind and wave fields during the 40’
storm.
An interesting counterpart of the Nov 1913 storm also occured in Nov 1950, but I will save this discusion for another time.