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Individuals desiring to use this material in their own research may do so. ========================================================================= Formatted by U.S. Data Repository Chief Archivist, Linda Talbott All of the above information must remain when copied or downloaded. =========================================================================== MONTLY WEATHER REVIEW November, 1913 Page 1678 CLIMATOLOGICAL DATA FOR NOVEMBER, 1913. ---------------------- DISTRICT NO. 4, THE LAKE REGION. J. H. Armington, Acting District Editor. STORM OF NOVEMBER 7-10 The storm of the 7th to 10th was one of the severest that has ever crossed the Lake Region. While higher winds have been recorded in connection with other dis- turbances, the velocities experienced in this storm were at most stations far above the verifying limits for wind- storms, and they continued so long as to cause extra- ordinarily high seas which swept the Lakes with tre- mendous force. Many disasters and casualties occurred as a result of the storm. Breakwaters were broken up, and banks on the windward shores were badly washed out. The disturbance was accompanied over the central and eastern portions of the lakes by driving snow, which increased the precarious situation of vessels, tied up land traffic, and caused much damage to a considerable dis- tance from the shore. NOVEMBER, 1913 MONTLY WEATHER REVIEW Page 1679 Owing to the exceptional severity of this storm, reports of various Weather Bureau officials relative to it are given in considerable detail: Duluth, Minn. - There was no loss of life or vessel property on the extreme western end of Lake Superior as a result of the great storm which passed over the Lake Region on the 7th to the 10th, but some local damage occurred to property ashore in sections near the Duluth- Superior harbor during the northwest gale which prevailed on the afternoon and evening of the 7th. During this storm the maximum ve- locities ranged anywhere from 34 to 62 miles between 1 p.m. and 7 p.m., its intensity being greatest about 7 p.m. and ceasing abruptly a few minutes after the latter hour. This was the only blow of any con- sequence during the month. - H. W. Richardson, Duluth, Minn. Sault Ste. Marie, Mich. - The storm of the 7th to 10th was the most se- vere experienced on the lakes for many years. A large fleet anchored in the upper river and the lower part of White Fish Bay. The wind and sea sweeping down the bay, into the river, caused the steamers J. C. HUTCHINSON and FRED G. HARTWELL to drag their anchors and strike rock shoals, sinking both vessels and causing very heavy damage. The steamer WILLIAM NOTTINGHAM struck a shoal near White Fish Point and was very badly damaged. Three of the crew were drowned while trying to reach shore in a small boat. The steamer CORNELL was in the gale above White Fish Point from Friday morning until Monday night. She sustained very heavy damage and was kept off the beach only with the greatest difficulty. Other disasters occurred farther up the lake. While the wind at this station reached a maximum velocity of only 37 NW. at 6.55 p.m. on the 9th, vesselmasters report that on the open lake it was 60 to 80 miles per hour. A very peculiar feature was reported by Capt. Noble, steamer CORNELL. About midnight of Thursday, the 6th, while on the course from White Fish Point to Keweenaw, and about 50 miles west of the point, with the wind light from the southeast, he sud- denly encountered an unusually high northwest sea, and shortly after- ward the wind backed to northerly, blowing a gale, which lasted until Monday night. The Canadian steamer LEAFIELD, loaded with steel rails, for Port Arthur, has not been heard from since leaving Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario. The fine steel steamer HENRY B. SMITH left Marquette Sun- day evening, the 9th, and has never been heard of. The steel steamer L. C. WALDO was driven on Manitou Island and will probably prove a total loss. The Canadian steamer TURRET CHIEF was driven on Keweenaw Point and will probably prove a total loss. The crews of the WALDO and TURRET CHIEF suffered great hardships before being rescued. Gales reaching a velocity of 46 to 48 miles on the 23d and 24th caused vessels to remain in shelter. - Alexander G. Burns, Sault Ste. Marie, Mich. The storm on Lake Huron on November 9, 1913 - The storm of Novem- ber 9 will be entered in the history of navigation as one of the most vio- lent and one that exacted a greater toll of life and property on Lake Huron than any other storm within memory of local navigators. After its fury had subsided, it was found that 8 boats were missing, some of which ranked with the best on the lakes, and with them went down 200 lives. Ten boats were stranded, of which 2 were abandoned as total loss, while the others were released in more or less damaged condition. The greatest casualties occurred on the southern part of the lake, pre- sumably within a hundred miles of Port Huron. Here 9 out of the 10 boats were stranded, and all the 8 missing boats are supposed to have foundered. Most of the stranded boats were found near the entrance to Saginaw Bay, between Port Austin and Harbor Beach, Mich. The survivors' accounts of the storm and of their struggle to keep their vessels afloat are almost heart-rending. The water, they claim, was simply a seething mass, such as they have never seen before. So helplessly were they tossed about by the waves and carried by the cur- rents that most of them did not know where they were. Some of those that were stranded near Saginaw Bay felt absolutely sure before strik- ing ground that they were at least 10 to 15 miles from the shore, others again were under the impression that they were near the middle of the lake, somewhere opposite Sturgeon Point. The story of the struggle of the 8 vessels that were lost in Lake Huron will never be known, neither are the places known where 7 of them foundered. The bodies of some of the crews, as well as consider- able wreckage, were washed ashore on the Canadian side of the lake, all along between Kincardine and Kettle Point, so the natural supposition is that the boats were lost in the lower half of the lake. One of the foundered boats, the CHARLES S. PRICE, was discovered 11 miles north of Port Huron and 7 miles offshore completely turned over. Her hull protruded about 20 feet above the water when she was first discovered, evidently bouyed up by the imprisoned air that was bubbling up all around her. She settled gradually and disappeared under the water on the 17th of November. Some of the bodies were washed ashore near Goderich, Ontario, about 55 miles northeast from where she sank. The storm began on this part of the lake about 6 a.m. of the 9th, when the wind became brisk northwest. The first verifying velocity (36 miles) occurred at 9.50 a.m., and from that time to 1.30 p.m. the wind increased very little but fluctuated between 20 and 42 miles per hour. About 1.30 p.m. it shifted to the north, and increased steadily until it attained an extreme velocity of 62 miles per hour, at 9.02 p.m. A comparison with the wind record from Harbor Beach, Mich., near the entrance to Saginaw Bay, shows that the wind was nearly the same in that part of the lake also. The highest and steadiest winds occurred between 6 and 10 p.m., and that was the time when most of the accidents occurred. Even the watches that were found on the dead bodies were stopped between 8 and 11.30, and probably indicated the time when the boats went to pieces and the sailors entered their watery graves. The station barometer began to fall about 2 a.m. of the 9th, when it stood near 29.70 inches sea level, and reached the lowest point, 28.95 sea level, at 8 p.m. During the fall the wind was strong from the north- west and north, indicating that the storm was increasing in energy, as its center was already east of the station. The damage on land and along the shore, although considerable and will probably total over $100,000 in Port Huron alone, appears insig- nificant when compared with the losses on the open lake. Telegraph and telephone communication was crippled for several days. Trains and electric cars were stalled by the blinding snowstorm, which piled up the snow in drifts of 4 to 5 feet high. A few store windows were smashed in, and several houses were unrooofed. The water rose 4 to 5 feet above normal height at the foot of the lake and in St. Clair River, and caused considerable damage to shops and dock property along the water front. The Fort Gratiot lighthouse at the foot of the lake was badly undermined by the action of the waves, and the lightship, about 2 miles farther up in the lake, was torn loose from her anchorage and dragged with its occupants to the Canadian shore. - A. Wiesner, Port Huron, Mich. At Cleveland, Ohio - The unusual character and severity, in some respects, of the storm, together with the attendant appalling losses, were such as to warrant the predicition that it will go down in local his- tory and be referred to for years to come as the "Great Storm of Novem- ber, 1913." For this reason a detailed though inadequate account of this storm, as experienced in Cleveland and vicinity, may be of interest. Coming so early in the season and combining as it did the chief features of the windstorm, the snowstorm, the ice storm, and the cold wave, it swept down upon the almost wholly unprepared city with well-nigh paralyzing effect. Discomfort, not to say actual suffering, was very general, although fortunately brief. The storm proper may be said to have commenced in Cleveland about 4.30 a.m., Sunday, November 9, and to have ended about 2 p.m. Tuesday, November 11, as those dates mark the beginning and the end- ing of precipitation. The precipitation was at first mostly rain and very light but mixed with a small amount of very moist snow. By 10 a.m., however, the rain had entirely ceased and the snowfall had become heavy, being still quite moist. The snow continued heavy until the afternoon or evening of the 10th when it became light and so continued until about 2 p.m. of the 11th. The total amount of snow- fall, unmelted, during the entire storm was 22.2 inches, which melted gave 3.18 inches of water. The greatest amount of snowfall in any 24 hours during the storm was 17.4 inches between 7 p.m. of the 9th and 7 p.m. of the 10th. The greatest previous 24-hour fall since the opening of the station in 1870 was 13 inches on February 9, 1896. At the beginning of the storm the temperature was about 36 degrees, gradually falling during the day to slightly below 30 degrees, remaining about stationary during the 10th and 11th, and falling to about 20 degrees on the morning of the 12th. The storm set in with a moderate northwest wind that steadily increased, reaching the verifying velocity (40 miles per hour) about 1.50 p.m. of the 9th. From 2 p.m. of the 9th until 6 a.m. of the 10th the wind blew with a remarkably uniform velocity, the total movement during those 16 hours being 779 miles, or an average velocity of about 49 miles per hour. The highest maximum velocity attained was only 62 miles at 4.40 p.m. of the 9th, and the extreme was 79 miles at about the same time. The wind continued quite constantly from the northwest up to 2 p.m. of the 9th when it showed a tendency to shift to the west but continued to vacilate between northwest and west until about 7.00 p.m. when it shifted definitely and permanently to the west, from which direction it came until about 8.20 a.m. of the 10th when it went to the southwest and so continued to the end of the storm. At the beginning of the storm, the barometer showed a pressure of about 29.60 inches, decreasing rather rapidly. The lowest reading of the barometer as shown by the barograph trace was about 29.07 inches and occurred between 9 and 10 a.m. of the 9th, after which time the pressure rose, quite rapidly at first, until the end of the storm. As stated already, the temperature at the beginning of the storm were so near the freezing point as to make conditions decidedly favor- able for the formation of ice and heavy deposit of snow on wires, tree trunks, limbs, etc., so that by Sunday night all telegraph and tele- phone wires, electric-light wires, trolley wires, trees, etc., were incased in ice and so heavily burdened with snow that under the pressure of a 50-mile-gale, poles and wires began to break and fall in every direction, trees either broke or were weighted to the ground, so that the telephone, telegraph, trolley, and electric-light service were completely paralyzed or seriously crippled and all traffic greatly demoralized. The extent of the losses cannot be ascertained even approximately at this time but will be very large here in Cleveland. The loss of life in this city was small. - William H. Alexander, Cleveland, Ohio. Buffalo, N.Y. - The dominating feature of the weather for the month of November, 1913, was the destructive storm that caused widespread disaster over the Great Lakes from the 7th to the 10th, inclusive. The storm center passed this station between 6 and 7 p.m. of the 9th and caused an unusually low reading of the barometer here, the lowest reading being 28.69 inches reduced to sea level. Moderatly heavy rain and only moderate to brisk northerly and easterly winds prevailed here on the 9th. At 3.30 a.m. of the 10th the wind became high from the south and from that hour until 5 p.m. a gale, accompanied by heavy snow, raged over this city, the highest velocity, 80 miles from the southwest, occurring at 1.17 p.m. Notwithstanding the gale averaged over 60 miles an hour from 7 a.m. to 4 p.m. there were no casualties at this end of Lake Erie, except that of LIGHTSHIP NO. 82, which was lost of with a crew of six men. The lightship was stationed off Point Abino, about 13 miles from Buffalo. Several small pleasure yachts were driven on the beach at the Buffalo Yacht Club. The small loss to the shipping interests in this section was unquestionably due to timely warnings issued by the bureau, for a large fleet of steamers remained in port until the storm subsided. More than 30 large steamers were back of the outer breakwater waiting for an opportunity to go out, and their estimated value is close to $1,000,000. The heavy moist snow that fell on the 10th impeded traffic here somewhat. In fact, I am of the opinion that if the gale that raged over the Lakes from the 8th to the 10th, inclusive, had not been accompanied by heavy snow the loss of life would have been small and few, if any, boats would probably have been wrecked, as the storm was no record breaker for wind in this section. Compared with other storms, particularly those that have occurred in November, we find that the gale on November 21, 1900, was of longer duration and much more destructive in this locality. Damage to the amount of $300,000 was done to the breakwaters by this storm and the shipping interests suffered a loss of $100,000. The maximum velocity of this storm was 80 miles from the southwest against 80 miles from the southwest in the recent storm, but the 80 miles in November, 1900, was at an elevation of 200 feet, while the 80 miles during the recent storm was at an elevation of 279 feet, which would make the former about 15 per cent higher. The verifying velocity was raised from 46 miles on the Prudential Building to 54 miles on the Telephone Building, the present location of the local offices. - D. Cuthbertson, Buffalo, N.Y. ===========================================================================