Summary:
Details the conditions affecting 'the perfect storm' in October, 1991. Describes the devastation of Hurricane Andrew.
On October 28, 1991, a extratropical cyclone that developed along a cold front that had moved off the north east coast of the U.S. Part of it started over the Great Lakes as a typical mild low-pressure system moving from Chicago to New England. Meanwhile, a cold high-pressure system emerged in Canada and moved south. The low pressure very quickly deepened and became an important highlight in the western Atlantic. When these two systems came together in the North Atlantic they formed a very strong Nor'easter over the ocean. At the same time Hurricane Grace, which had formed on October 27 from a pre-existing subtropical storm and was initially moving northwestward, made a sudden turn to the east. It continued to go northeastward up the coast toward New England, but even though it was weakening, it finally swirled directly into the path of the existing storm, creating a completely huge hurricane that extended 2,000 miles wide.
Hurricane Grace was a huge system that was already beginning to affect areas near the coast of North Carolina to Florida's coastline.
On around October 29, 1991, as the low pressure continued to deepen, Grace became a less significant contributor to what was going on over the western Atlantic over for the next few days. Later, a really strong low-pressure area moved west toward the US and then south east to a point midway between Bermuda and New Jersey where it reached its maximum intensity. At this time, already October 30th, sustained winds in the storm reached 70 mph, which created 40- to 80-foot waves on the Atlantic (which was reported by a weather buoy). Other unsubstantiated weather observations reported winds and waves much higher, including one wave 101 feet high. During October 30 - 31st, the storm, still going over the Atlantic, hit a lot of eastern North America from North Carolina to Nova Scotia with waves 10 to 30 feet high. It reached peak intensity October 30, after this, it went back southwestward on October 31. Really high tides along the coast were 3-7 ft. above normal and extreme coastal flooding caused extensive damage along the New England and mid-Atlantic coast. there was around$100 million in damage in Massachusetts alone. Federal disaster areas were declared for seven counties in Massachusetts, five in Maine, and one in New Hampshire. Coastal flooding and raging seas raked places from Jamaica to Newfoundland, Canada. The National Hurricane Center decided not to name the hurricane because they thought that it would unnecessarily scare coastal residents that had just been through a major nor'easter, as well as it just might confuse people into thinking it might mean another major storm.
The somewhat moderate moisture from Grace became caught up in the outer part of the extratropical storm center's circulation, far from the storm's center. By the next day these remnants had become indistinguishable. The center of the extratropical low drifted southeastward and then southwestward, deepening all the time.
Hurricane Andrew cost about 26 billion dollars in damage in the United States which made it the most expensive natural disaster ever in the US. Even after all of this though, it still wasn't the biggest hurricane, which was in 1900 at Galveston, Texas. It was a category 4 hurricane and killed around 6000 people.
This is the complete article, containing 547 words
(approx. 2 pages at 300 words per page).
