Great Colonial Hurricane of 1635

{{Infobox weather event

| name = Great Colonial hurricane

| image = Great Colonial Hurricane of 1635 track.png

| alt =

| caption = Map of the Great Colonial Hurricane's path (reconstructed by the AOML)

| formed = Unknown

| dissipated = {{end-date| August 25, 1635}}

}}{{Infobox weather event/NWS

| winds = 117.312

| pressure = 930

| pressure-prefix = ≤

| winds-prefix = ≥

| pressure-suffix =
(estimated)

}}{{Infobox weather event/Effects

| year = 1635

| fatalities = 46+ direct

| injuries = Unknown

| damage = Unknown

| areas = Virginia, Long Island, New England, other areas? (Information scarce)

| refs =

}}{{Infobox weather event/Footer

| season = 1635 Atlantic hurricane season

}}

The Great Colonial Hurricane of 1635 was an extraordinarily powerful and devastating Atlantic hurricane that brushed Colonial Virginia and struck the New England Colonies in late August 1635. Accounts of the storm are very limited, but it was likely the most intense hurricane to hit New England since European colonization. The storm had a similar track and forward speed to that of the 1944 Great Atlantic hurricane and is the first of five known major hurricanes to have struck the modern New England region. The storm also likely produced one of the greatest storm surges in United States history, modern analysis has found.

Meteorological history

The first recorded mention of the Great Colonial Hurricane was on August 24, 1635, at the Virginia Colony at Jamestown.[http://www.wpc.ncep.noaa.gov/research/roth/va17hur.htm Seventeenth Century Virginia Hurricanes] It affected Jamestown as a major hurricane, although no references can be found to damage. This is likely because the hurricane evidently moved past rapidly, well east of the settlement. The pressure at this time is estimated to have been below 930 mbar (27.46 inHg). This would make it the most intense tropical cyclone in the world north of modern-day South Carolina.

The storm then continued at ~{{convert|40|mph|km/h|abbr=on|round=5}} before making landfall in eastern Long Island during the early morning of August 26, 1635, with sustained winds of at least {{convert|125|mph|km/h|abbr=on|round=5}}.{{cite news | url=https://x.com/NWSBoston/status/901064843830210561 | title=NWS Boston (@NWSBoston) on X | newspaper=X (Formerly Twitter) }} The storm then struck modern-day Connecticut and Rhode Island shortly after, with a pressure of {{convert|939|mbar|inHg|abbr=on}}. Governors John Winthrop of Massachusetts Bay Colony and William Bradford of Plymouth Colony recorded accounts of the hurricane. Both describe high winds, {{convert|14|to|20|ft}} storm surges along the south-facing coasts and great destruction. The storm then continued before striking the Port of Boston with a pressure of ~{{convert|945|mbar|inHg|abbr=on}}. After continuing into the Gulf of Maine, details on the storm remain unknown.

Effects

Much of the area between Providence and the Piscataqua River was destroyed. Locals noted the catastrophic damage to the environment, crops and structures.https://repository.library.noaa.gov/view/noaa/22790/noaa_22790_DS1.pdf {{Bare URL PDF|date=August 2024}} Some damage was still noticeable over fifty years later. Bradford also wrote that the storm drowned seventeen Indians, flattened many houses and toppled or destroyed thousands of trees.

File:Antony Thachers Monument, Yarmouth, Mass.jpg

The small barque Watch and Wait, owned by a Mr. Isaac Allerton, foundered in the storm off Cape Ann with twenty-three people aboard. The only survivors were Antony Thacher and his wife, who reached Thacher Island. Thacher wrote an account of the shipwreck, while John Greenleaf Whittier based his poem "[https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Atlantic_Monthly/Volume_2/Number_2/The_Swan_Song_of_Parson_Avery The Swan Song of Parson Avery]" on Thacher's account of Father Joseph Avery's death during the wreck.

In Narragansett Bay, the tide was {{convert|14|ft|m}} above the ordinary tide and drowned eight Indians fleeing from their wigwams. The highest totals were at the head of Buzzards Bay, where a surge of 18 to 24 feet (5.5 to 7.3 m) occurred. The town of Plymouth suffered severe damage when the town's houses blew down. The wind also blew down mile-long swathes of woods in Plymouth, and elsewhere in eastern Massachusetts. It also destroyed Plymouth Colony's Aptucxet Trading Post in Bourne. The worst of the damage in the greater Boston area occurred to the south. According to the accounts of Bradford and Winthrop, high surge swept over the low-lying tracts of Dorchester, ruining the farms and landscape.

The ships James and Angel Gabriel had just anchored off the New England coast, full of settlers from England, and they were caught in the storm. James survived, but Angel Gabriel was wrecked at Pemaquid, Massachusetts Bay Colony (now Bristol, Maine).{{Cite web |date=2019-09-19 |title=The Great Colonial Hurricane and the wreck of the Angel Gabriel |url=https://historicipswich.org/2019/09/19/the-great-colonial-hurricane-and-the-wreck-of-the-angel-gabriel-august-25-1635/ |access-date=2021-09-25 |website=Historic Ipswich |language=en}} An account from The Cogswells in America states: "'The storm was frightful at Pemaquid, the wind blowing from the northeast, the tide rising to a very unusual height, in some places more than twenty feet right up and down; this was succeeded by another and unaccountable tidal wave still higher.' The Angel Gabriel became a total wreck, passengers, cattle, and goods were all cast upon the angry waves. Three or four passengers and one seaman perished, and there was the loss of cattle and much property."{{Cite book |last=Jameson |first=E. O. |url=https://archive.org/details/cogswellsinameri00jame |title=The Cogswells in America |date=1884 |publisher=A. Mudge & son, printers |location=Boston |pages=xvii}}

Modern analysis

File:Great Colonial Hurricane of 1635 details.jpg.]]

The Hurricane Research Division of the Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Laboratory of NOAA has conducted a re-analysis project to re-examine the National Hurricane Center's data about historic hurricanes. Brian Jarvinen used modern hurricane and storm surge computer models to recreate a storm consistent with contemporaneous accounts of the Great Colonial Hurricane.{{Cite journal |last=Jarvinen |first=Brian R. |title=Storm Tides in Twelve Tropical Cyclones (including Four Intense New England Hurricanes) |publisher=Report for FEMA/National Hurricane Center |year=2006 |url=http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/hrd/Landsea/12Tides.pdf }} He estimated that the storm was probably a Cape Verde-type hurricane, considering its intensity; and likely took a similar track to that of the Great Atlantic Hurricane of 1944 and Hurricane Edna of 1954. The storm's eye would have struck Long Island before moving between Boston and Plymouth. The storm likely would have been a large Category 4 or 5 hurricane when passing by Virginia and was at least a high-end Category 3 at landfall. Sustained winds of {{convert|132|mph|km/h|abbr=on}} and a central pressure of {{convert|938|mbar|inHg|abbr=on}} is the estimated intensity during the Long Island's landfall, & a pressure of {{convert|939|mbar|inHg|abbr=on}} during the second landfall. If accurate, this would make it the most intense hurricane to make landfall north of Cape Fear, North Carolina. Jarvinen also noted that the hurricane may have produced the highest storm surge along the East Coast in recorded history, at great than {{convert|20|ft|m}} in the Narragansett Bay.

An erosional scarp in the western Gulf of Maine may be a trace of the Great Colonial Hurricane.{{Cite journal |title=A 1500 yr record of North Atlantic storm activity based on optically dated relict beach scarps |first1=Ilya V. |last1=Buynevich |first2=Duncan M. |last2=FitzGerald |name-list-style=amp |first3=Ronald J. |last3=Goble |journal=Geology |year=2007 |volume=35 |issue=6 |pages=543–546 |doi=10.1130/G23636A.1 |bibcode = 2007Geo....35..543B }}

References

External links

[http://www.islandnet.com/~see/weather/events/gh1635.htm The Great Hurricane of 1635 and the Legend of Thacker Island] by Keith C. Heidorn
[http://www.whoi.edu/home/about/currents_v9no3_hurricanes.html Woods Hole Currents: Digging Into Hurricanes] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20050829153851/http://www.whoi.edu/home/about/currents_v9no3_hurricanes.html |date=2005-08-29 }}
[https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/hurricane38/timeline/ Timeline: U.S. Storm Disasters]
[http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/weather/hurricane/sfl-hc-history-1495to1800,0,3354030.htmlstory Hurricane timeline: 1495 to 1800] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140814055439/http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/weather/hurricane/sfl-hc-history-1495to1800,0,3354030.htmlstory |date=2014-08-14 }}

1635

Category:Hurricanes in New England

Category:1635 disasters

Category:1630s natural disasters

Category:1635 in the Thirteen Colonies