HURRICANES INTO NEW ENGLAND 

 METEOROLOGY OF THE STORM OF SEPTEMBER 21, 1938^ 



By Chables F. Beooks 

 Blue Hill Meteorological Observatory, Harvard University 



The hurricane of September 1938 was a whirling, circular storm 

 with very destructive winds spread over a diameter of 200 miles. 

 At its center was the usual calm eye, some 40 miles in breadth. This 

 vortex rushed northward to Long Island and New England with the 

 speed of an express train, augmenting wind velocities to extremes 

 of about 120 miles an hour on the east of the path of the center. 

 The wind drove the sea water with such force that, when added to 

 the rise in sea level due to the low pressure and thrown against the 

 coast, the sea rose 10 to 17 feet above the expected level, in itself 

 high water, the time being high tide.^^ Towering surges on this com- 

 bined astronomical tide and storm wave threw the sea to such heights 

 that demolition was general along the exposed coast, and they came 

 so suddenly that hundreds of persons, some of them at the shore to 

 watch the fine surf, were engulfed and drowned. Flying spray 

 incrusted windows ; salt killed vegetation 20 miles inland, and traces 

 were found even 50 miles from the raging sea. Inland, the rivers, 

 already flooded by 4 days of tropical rains, added to the destruction. 



The gale, roaring in great gusts over the countryside, broke off or 

 uprooted some 275 million trees, damaged or destroyed thousands 

 of buildings, and directly or indirectly downed nearly 20,000 miles 

 of electric-power and telephone lines, darkening the homes of seven- 

 eighths of those served by power lines and cutting off nearly one- 

 third of the telephones. Many people were killed or injured by 

 falling trees and chimneys, or flying debris. Twenty-six thousand 

 autos were smashed. The damage was most extensive on the tops 

 and flanks of hills, in and beyond gaps through which the wind was 

 funneled, on leeward shores and the corresponding margins of 

 meadows, golf courses, and other open stretches — even broad high- 

 ways and railroad right-of-ways where they were approximately 



1 Reprinted with changes from The Geographical Review, vol. 29, January 1939. 



la por general summary see Neuman, F., Storm wave data for the New England hurri- 

 cane of September 21, 193S. Bull. Amer. Meteorol. Soc., vol. 20, pp. 357-358, October 

 1939. 



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