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The Great Lakes: Storm Breeding Ground - Page 2

© Keith C. Heidorn

continent. Many of these move along preferred storm track paths toward the Great Lakes. When the first cold air masses move out of the north and cross the Lakes, they are warmed by the waters below. This added heat tempers the arctic outbreak and often postpones the first hard frosts along the southern lakeshores for several weeks. (Fruit belts in Ontario, Michigan and upper New York are made possible, in part, by this moderating influence on temperatures.)

Thus, when a developed or developing storm moves across these relatively warm Lake waters later in the season, it receives a huge shot of heat energy from the waters below to fuel the storm engine, often intensifying with explosive speed. The resulting storms can maintain hurricane-force winds as high as 160 km/h (100 mph), produce large waves in excess of 15 m (50 ft) in height, and drop heavy precipitation. A few storms stall over the Great Lakes for days, voraciously feeding on the warm-water energy below them. While spinning in place, such hurricane-like storms ravage the Lakes and surrounding shoreline. Waters pushed by the storm winds much like a hurricane's storm surge and topped with high wave action severely erode the shoreline and may flood the coastal regions.

Ships caught on the Great Lakes during these fierce storms can be tossed like toys before the fury of wind and wave. As early as 1835, a November storm "swept the lakes clear of sail." In 1847, a major storm claimed 77 ships on lake waters. A 1905 gale on Lake Superior wrecked 111 ships and beached 14 steel carriers. Again in 1975, a powerful Great Lake storm caused many shipwrecks including the giant ore carrier Edmund Fitzgerald.

The king of Great Lakes storms, however, struck Lakes Huron and Erie in 1913 when wind and wave sent 12 vessels to the bottom at a cost of more than 230 lives and pushed 20 ships aground. The winds on Lake Huron on November 9, 1913 blew from the north at speeds exceeding 110 km/h (69 mph) with gusts in excess of 139 km/h (86 mph).

Even today the storm, known historically as the "Ultimate Storm," is considered one of the most severe storms in the Ohio weather history. In its wake, 98-year-old John Williams of Sandusky remarked to the Toledo Blade: "Whenever some old-timer tries to tell you that the old-fashioned winter was worse than the sample we've just had, put him down as an imaginative chap."

November is a month for remembrance. During the eleventh month, we remember the men and women who