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Boston Globe
2 days ago
- Climate
- Boston Globe
In 1991, an August hurricane named Bob made landfall in New England
Bob emerged rather quickly out of the Bahamas and traveled north along the Eastern Seaboard on a collision path with New England. A separate area of low pressure over the eastern half of the United States curbed the hurricane's instinct to recurve out to sea, tugging at Bob to the west and therefore very close to the coast. An employee watches Eel Pond flood into Shuckers in Woods Hole, Mass., on Aug. 19, 1991, during Hurricane Bob. Bill Greene/Globe Staff/The Boston Globe Upon making landfall, two peak wind gusts measured 125 miles per hour on Cape Cod, in Brewster and North Truro. The intense winds pushed up to 8 feet of storm surge onto Rhode Island's coast, while Buzzards Bay was nearly washed out with a near 15-foot storm surge. The immediate right side of a hurricane's eye typically holds the strongest forcing, and Bourne, Wareham, and Mashpee saw extensive flooding from strong winds sending destructive waves ashore. Advertisement The seawall across East Falmouth was nearly destroyed, and between Rhode Island and Massachusetts, more than 100 boats were displaced or capsized in marinas. Jack Neal, of Colonial Gas Co. of Cape Cod, works to disconnect a gas service line along Shore Street in Falmouth, Mass., on Aug. 20, 1991, after Hurricane Bob caused $1 billion in damage across the state. Barry Chin/Globe Staff/The Boston Globe Another way to put it into context: The strength of Hurricane Bob was so powerful that south-facing beaches across both Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket saw around 50 feet of shoreline washed away. Advertisement Significant rain fell across New England, causing widespread flooding and damage to multiple buildings and infrastructure. A little over 8 inches of rain fell at Portland, Maine's Jetport, while most of the region saw between 3 and 6 inches. Bob claimed 18 lives, including six deaths in Connecticut, three in Maine, two in New Hampshire, and one in Massachusetts. A board put up to protect a deli in Menemsha, Mass., on Martha's Vineyard, challenges the elements on Aug. 20, 1991, ahead of Hurricane Bob. Tom Landers/Globe Staff/The Boston Globe All in all, Hurricane Bob left thousands of New Englanders without power for days and caused $700 million in damages in our region alone, which is over a billion dollars today. Hurricane Bob was the most recent of five landfalling hurricanes on or near New England since 1950. Hurricanes that made landfall near New England since 1950. Boston Globe Ken Mahan can be reached at
Boston Globe
6 days ago
- Climate
- Boston Globe
Is it time to rethink how we measure potential hurricane threats?
That's because the Saffir-Simpson Scale only takes into account a hurricane's sustained wind speeds, and not other potentially deadly hazards, such as storm surge, a storm's duration, spawned tornadoes, as well as flooding and the amount of rainfall a hurricane is going to unleash. The Saffir-Simpson hurricane scale shows five categories for hurricane strength. Boston Globe Let's look at some examples over the years: Hurricane Irene — Think about the remnants of Hurricane Irene back in 2011, which created catastrophic flooding across portions of New York and New England, especially in southern Vermont and New Hampshire. We had already had a wet summer that year, and the rain from Irene, which wasn't even a hurricane by the time it reached New England, left behind more than a billion dollars' worth of damage. People help a Department of Natural Resources worker whose truck became stuck on a washed-out Surf Drive in Falmouth, Mass., during Hurricane Irene, on Aug. 28, 2011. Bill Greene A car tries to plow through a flooded Surf Drive in Falmouth during Hurricane Irene on Aug. 28, 2011. Bill Greene Hurricane Florence — On Sept. 14, 2018, Hurricane Florence made landfall around Wrightsville Beach, N.C., as a Category 1 storm. But it wasn't the wind that was the major contributor to this deadly storm that caused $24 billion in damage, but the five-day rainfall totals of 20 to 50 inches across eastern North Carolina. That rain would spread inland, creating mudslides and into the mountains, causing additional flooding. Hurricane Harvey — Harvey, which impacted Texas in late August 2017, brought over 60 inches of rain to two locations near Port Arthur, Texas. This was the heaviest rainfall ever recorded in the U.S. from a tropical cyclone, and although the storm was a formidable major hurricane when it came on land, it was not the wind that was the biggest contributor to the $128 billion in damage and the death of 89 people. It was the freshwater flooding from all that rain. A list of the seven costliest hurricanes on record. Boston Globe Storm surges, also not considered part of the Saffir-Simpson Scale, range from 4 to 5 feet with Category 1 storms to over 19-foot surges with a Category 5. However, just as important factors are whether or not a storm strikes at high tide, the particular location of landfall, and the slope of the shelf underneath the water, as well as whether the storm is moving slowly or quickly. Advertisement Storm surge from a head on landfall will be amplified, resulting in extensive damage to property while being life-threatening. Boston Globe Human-induced climate change has produced more warming and is leading to more heavy rain events. Attribution science informs us that these hurricanes, which have produced such unusual amounts of flooding rains, were more than likely supercharged by the greenhouse gases we've added to the atmosphere. Homeowners, emergency management personnel, as well as insurance agencies would benefit from a more comprehensive scale than the Saffir-Simpson one predominantly in use today. Eventually, a hurricane will strike New England again (our last one was Bob in 1991). It would be useful for the public to have a scale that foretold the possible impacts of such a storm because, no matter what the category, there's a lot more than wind that can impact all of us. Have a weather question or maybe a weather topic you'd like us to cover? Let us know at weather@ .
