Weather Features

Evidence Of 'Hurricane Of 1938' Remains

Reminders Are Everywhere: Mish Michaels' Reporter's Notebook

BOSTON (WBZ) ― If you are younger than 70, the Hurricane of 1938 only amounts to black and white still images and choppy, dark moving pictures of the distant past. Although the memories have faded, even for survivors, the impact of that storm still shapes our landscape today. In fact, the evidence may be in your own backyard, you just need to know what to look for.

The "Great New England Hurricane" sprinted up the coast with a forward speed of 60mph. The quick sprint kept hurricane force winds blowing far inland. In fact, wind damage stretched from the southern coast of New England all the way to the Canadian border. Some 100,000 square miles of land was impacted from seacoast to mountaintop. The winds toppled tens of millions of trees.

In our state, the majority of damage was to pine trees with the heaviest toll east of the Connecticut River Valley and west of the coastal plain, where urban development was most dense.

After the hurricane, the U.S. government began the biggest timber salvage effort in our country's history. The extra wood came at a good time. The boards were used to support WWII, turning into shipping crates and barracks for the soldiers. Today, the majority of trees in the geographic area hit hardest are younger than 70 years of age, growing quietly almost everywhere you look.

The strong winds also set a record that day. Atop the Blue Hill Weather Observatory in Milton, winds screamed, hitting 121mph with a peak gust of an unimaginable 186mph. And it all came without warning. The forecast had called for a strategic right turn, tracking the storm out to sea as so many had done before.

Today, a host of technologies keep tabs on a hurricane's every move. Two key hurricane models used by forecasters, the GFDL and the HWRF, benefit from the smarts of a local ocean expert. Those tracking models are coupled with an ocean model that was developed at the University of Rhode Island's Graduate School of Oceanography. Each year, model upgrades are incorporated into operations. This season, warm and cool core eddies in tropical waters were added and likely played a role in improved intensity forecasts for both Ike and Gustav.

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