Great September Gale of 1815

Infobox Hurricane
Name=Great September Gale
Type=hurricane
Year=2005
Basin=Atl
Formed=before September 22, 1815
Dissipated=September 24, 1815
1-min winds=116
Pressure=
Da

Inflated=0
Fatalities=38+ direct
Areas=New England
Hurricane season=1815 Atlantic hurricane seasonThe Great September Gale of 1815 (the word "hurricane" was not yet current in American English at the time), is one of five "major hurricanes" (Category 3 on the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Scale) to strike New England since 1635. [Hughes (1987), refering to the Great Colonial Hurricane of 1635, the 1821 Norfolk and Long Island hurricane, “Hurricane Four” of the 1893 Atlantic hurricane season, and the New England Hurricane of 1938.] At the time it struck, the Great September Gale was the first hurricane to strike New England in 180 years.

Impact

The storm struck Long Island on September 23 1815, probably coming ashore near Center Moriches (Ludlum); on the South Shore of Long Island it broke through the barrier beach and created the inlet that still isolates Long Beach, which had previously been an eastward extension of The Rockaways. Then in New England it came ashore at Saybrook, Connecticut. The storm delivered an convert|11|ft|m|abbr=off|lk=off|adj=on storm surge that funneled up Narragansett Bay where it destroyed some 500 houses and 35 ships and flooded Providence, Rhode Island, where a line marked on the Old Market Building marked the storm surge that was unexampled in the city until the New England Hurricane of 1938, which brought a convert|17.6|ft|m|abbr=off|lk=off|adj=on storm surge. There is still a worn plaque on the Rhode Island Hospital Trust building (built in 1917), along with a newer plaque showing the higher 1938 hurricane water level. At Matunuck, Rhode Island, sediment studies have identified the overwash fan of sediments in Succotash Marsh, where the 1815 hurricane storm surge overtopped the barrier beach.

In Dorchester, Massachusetts, just south of Boston, local historian William Dana Orcutt wrote in the late 19th century of the hurricane's impact: "In 1815 there was a great gale which destroyed the arch of the bridge over the Neponset River. This arch was erected over the bridge at the dividing line of the towns [Dorchester and Milton] in 1798." Dorchester's First Parish Meeting House was too badly damaged to repair. [ [http://www.dotnews.com/dorchesterstorms.html Dorchester Reporter, Dorchester MA USA ] ]

The eye passed into New Hampshire near Jaffrey and Hillsborough. [ [http://www.nhoem.state.nh.us/Mitigation/SecIII.shtm#Hurricane Welcome - Homeland Security & Emergency Management, NH DOS ] ]

Meteorology

In the aftermath of the Great Gale, the concept of a hurricane as a "moving vortex" was presented by John Farrar, Hollis professor of Mathematics and Natural Philosophy at Harvard University. In an 1819 paper he concluded that the storm "appears to have been a moving vortex and not the rushing forward of a great body of the atmosphere".

ee also

* List of tropical cyclones
* List of Atlantic hurricanes
* List of New England hurricanes

References

Further reading

*cite journal |last=Donnelly |first=J. P. |authorlink= |coauthors="et al." |year=2001 |month= |title=700 yr Sedimentary Record of Intense Hurricane Landfalls in Southern New England |journal=GSA Bulletin |volume=113 |issue=6 |pages=714&ndash;727 |doi=10.1130/0016-7606(2001)113<0714:YSROIH>2.0.CO;2 |url=http://www.geo.brown.edu/georesearch/esh/QE/Publications/GSAB2001/JDonnelly/Succotash/Succotash.htm |accessdate= |quote=
*cite journal |last=Hughes |first=P. |authorlink= |coauthors= |year=1987 |month= |title=Hurricanes haunt our history |journal=Weatherwise |volume=40 |issue=3 |pages=134-140 |id= |url= |accessdate= |quote=
*cite book |title=Early American Hurricanes, 1492-1870 |series=The History of American Weather |last=Ludlum |first=David M. |authorlink=David M. Ludlum |coauthors= |year=1963 |publisher=American Meteorological Society |location=Boston |isbn= |pages=

External links

* [http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/hurricane38/timeline/index.html PBS: American Experience: Timeline of US storm disasters]
* [http://www.nhoem.state.nh.us/Mitigation/SecIII.shtm#Hurricane State of New Hampshire Hazard Mitigation Plans: Great September Gale of 1815]
* [http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/pastdeadlyapp2.shtml? NOAA: The Deadliest Atlantic Tropical Cyclones]