182 Ou10o STATE ACADEMY OF SCIENCE 
2:40 to 2:45 was followed by ‘‘a storm of wind and rain whose fury 
was almost indescribable, though fortunately of short duration, 
the wind reaching a velocity of sixty-nine miles from the north 
while the rain came down in such a deluge that one could not see 
two feet from the window, the thunder and hghtning being 
appalling. The wind for ten minutes or from 2:45 p. mM. to 2:55 
p. M. reached and maintained a velocity of seventy-two miles per 
hour. At least 2.25 inches of rain fell during the fifteen minutes 
that the storm raged so violently. Heavy seas were dashed over 
railroad cars standing at least fifty feet from the water. At least 
one hundred chimneys were blown down.’’—From journal of 
Sandusky Weather Bureau Office. Some of these statements 
may be exaggerated as others in the journal, but not quoted, 
certainly are. 
August 15, 1879, a severe northeast gale set in at 12:30 P. M., 
the velocity ranging from thirty to forty miles that day, but from 
midnight till six a. m., August 16, averaging forty-eight miles 
and attaining a maximum of fifty-nine miles at 3:30 a. mM. In 
the afternoon of August 16, the direction was north and the gale 
ended with a velocity of twenty-five miles at 5:10 p. m. It 
caused very high seas and damaged several boats in the lake, no 
vessels of any kind entered or left the bay after the storm began. 
The total wind movement in twenty-four hours ending at noon 
August 16th, was nine hundred and fourteen miles. This and 
the average of forty-eight miles per hour for six hours are, I 
believe, unsurpassed in the records of the Sandusky office, while 
the maximum of fifty-nine miles has been surpassed but three 
times, viz., in the brief storm of July 11th, already mentioned; 
in a squall, August 9, 1885, sixty-three miles, northeast; and the 
following: 
Jan. 31, 1881, a gale from the northeast began at 7:30 a. Mm., 
reaching its height, sixty-four miles northeast, at 9:35 A. M., 
Feb. lst, and ending at 5:30 p.m. “The storm was one of the 
most severe known in these parts, the wind average forty-two 
miles per hour for eighteen hours; no extensive damage done.”’ 
The water that winter was too low to be raised to an extraordi- 
nary height even by such a gale. 
The highest water in Sandusky Bay since 1862 occurred 
April 23, 1882. The northeast gale began at 10:15 a. m. April 
22, and continued till 4:30 p.m. April 23, the maximum, forty- 
four miles, occurring at 2:15 a. m. It averaged 32 5-12 miles 
per hour for twenty-four hours. The bay flooded everything on 
Railroad Street from one end to the other. At Marblehead a 
dock was washed away and three others damaged. The schooner 
Gallatin was wrecked about two miles from Pelee Island. Thirty 
vessels took shelter behind Kelley’s Island. 
