Great Lakes November Storms

[Dutchman]

On November 10, 1975 the Edmund Fitzgerald sank with all lives aboard lost. We know the story; we know the song.

With the storm(s) traveling from West to East over the country a lot of news cast paid attention. I hope everybody here on the site fared well. If you watched the national news broadcasts yesterday you noticed they were on the east side of Lake Michigan, west coast of Michigan. Lake Michigan saw some 20-foot waves and with a wave period of four to six seconds that is quite a sight. My home port is South Haven and here is a picture of a wave breaking against the pier



The piers are about 500-feet long, and there is a channel for another 800-feet or so before it opens up for our harbor. The Black River was flowing out pretty strong due to all the rain, but the waves still came in as evidenced by this picture:



Up-river we have a couple of floating bars and restaurants,almost a mile from the inlet. These are permanently docked and made fast with sewer, water, and electric utilities. When we have a westerly storm like this the wave action causes the Idler Magnolia 118-year-old river boat and the newer Jack's Bar and Grille barge to move maybe 6 to 12-inches up and down. Yesterday I was told they they had an up-down travel of three-feet.

Luckily I'm sure all utilities were disconnected as they were closed and winterized. You can see two of the four extra pontoons they welded to this 118-year-old boat about 14-years ago to keep her from sinking and safe.

This was no boating weather here in the Great lakes, but they are boating now as the water isn't frozen yet. Here is a video of what it might have looked like during the last two days while on the bridge of a 740-foot bulk carrier, the same size as the Edmund Fitzgerald.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ctW9X8guXJQ

These are brave men roaming these inland seas during this fall season. Have a safe winter, everyone.

[jimh]

Like a lot of weather events forecasted these days, this storm seemed to not deliver the strength that was forecasted. In SE Michigan we were warned of 50-MPH winds. I suppose it blew 50-MPH at someplace for a few moments, but in my area we just had a breezy fall day.

The wind in the storm that sank the Edmund Fitzgerald was considerably stronger.

Wave height is proportional to:

--the speed of the wind
--the duration of time the wind has been blowing at that speed
--the fetch or distance that the wind has been blowing across the water

If a high wind blows for many hours over a long stretch of water, wave height will be quite high. The wave heights involved on the night the Edmund Fitzgerald was lost were reported by several experienced mariners to be the biggest they'd ever seen.

[jimh]

For some very good pictures of boating on Lake Michigan in the Fall with some high winds and waves, see

http://continuouswave.com/whaler/cetace ... age27.html

[jimh]

Many years ago, long before the internet, the web browser, and discussion forums, and back when, if you wanted to get together with other boaters, you attended a meeting of an organization like the U.S. Power Squadron or the Coast Guard Auxiliary, I recall attending a lecture given by a fellow from the Weather Bureau at a meeting of the Birmingham Power Squadron. Nowadays we'd say this fellow was a meteorologist from NOAA. He had worked most of his career for the government in SE Michigan forecasting the weather for the Great Lakes

There are two things from the lecture that I recall: the method of predicting the path of a storm, and some interesting data about occurrence of storms in the Fall on the Great Lakes.

In the days before having computers and software models, the fellow described their method of predicting the path of a storm. He said they'd watch the storm center while it was a day or two to the west, when it was in Iowa or Nebraska. Then they'd take a straight edge, and plot a line from where the storms was, through Benton Harbor, Michigan, and project the line eastward. That was their prediction for storm path.

This fellow also collected data about big storms in November and the difference in average temperature between the air and the water. In early November there were three days when the average water temperature was warmer than the average air temperature by the greatest amount. A storm moving over warm water would pick up the heat energy from the warm water, and this would intensify the storm. The data he had collected showed that the greatest difference occurred on average on November 9, 10, and 11. There was a very good correlation between this three day period in which the potential for a stronger than average storm to occur existed and the actual occurrence of such storms. And, there was also a very strong correlation between ship sinking and these three dates. He demonstrated that 80-percent of the tonnage on the bottom of the Great Lakes went there on those three days.

The most famous storms to occur in the three day period were:

--the Big Storm of 1913, which began on November 9 and lasted until November 12. It sank 13 ships, taking 244 lives;

--the Armistice Day Storm of 1940, called that because it started on November 11. It sank three major ships, taking 66 lives;

--the Edmund Fitzgerald Storm of 1975, on November 10. It sank the Fitzgerald and took 29 lives.

When Gordon LIghtfoot wrote "when the gales of November come early" he was being very accurate. Watch out for a storm around November 9, 10, 11. And, curiously, the storm we are talking about in this thread occurred in that same three-day window.

[Ridge Runner]

There is a pretty good NOAA pdf slide show titled "Great storms of the Great Lakes" - The slide show includes some interesting weather maps and pictures: http://www.crh.noaa.gov/images/apx/pres ... oNotes.pdf

[ConB]

The Carl D. Bradley broke in two and sunk in northern Lake Michigan 57 years ago today. Two crew members survived to tell their story.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SS_Carl_D._Bradley

Con

[jimh]

There is a bit of similarity with the CARL D. BRADLEY and EDMUND FITZGERALD:

--at one time they were each the longest ship on the Great Lakes

--the storms that sank them were both following seas

--they both inspired songs. The song about the BRADLEY, Wreck of the Carl D. Bradley, was written by Larry Penn, and Lee Murdock recorded it on his album "Cold Winds."

There was a lot of dispute about the BRADLEY sinking and whether she had broken in two. The ship owner insisted the ship had not broken in two, perhaps to minimize any culpability due to the ship having structural defects. Many years after the sinking a dive on the wreck seemed to confirm the hull had broken apart.

There is a good prior discussion about the BRADLEY sinking in the old forum:

http://continuouswave.com/ubb/Forum1/HTML/021874.html

A recently-published good book on the BRADLEY is Torn In Two: The True Story of the Carl D. Bradley Sinking and the Challenges for Those Left Behind, by Eric Gaertner.

The NOAA white paper also mentions the DANIEL J. MORRELL. She definitely broke into two sections. A few years ago we went out into Lake Huron with the specific purpose of visiting the wreck sites of the MORRELL and finding the hull on the bottom on our SONAR. The two sections are several miles apart. Several years ago at a lighthouse society convention I attended in Alpena, I met the only survior of the MORELL sinking, Dennis Hale. He had just authored a book, Soul Survior.

[jimh]

Right now the wind in central Lake Superior is blowing 45-knots from the WSW. Not much media coverage tonight. Also 40-knot WSW in northern Lake Michigan. The 1,000-foot STEWART J CORT is taking shelter off St. Ignace. You can see it on MARINETRAFFIC.COM. Add the WIND layer to see current wind speed and direction.

Most lakers are tucked in somewhere and riding it out in sheltered water. The salty BBC STEINWALL just departed from Thunder Bay and passed between Isle Royale and Passage Island into open Lake Superior. The winds are 45-knots there. I bet they are having quite a ride tonight.

[jimh]

Following up on my observation from Thursday, when BBC STEINWALL was the only ship on Lake Superior, today the winds are down to 10 to 15-knots, and there are 20 vessels on the open water of the big lake.

BBC STEINWALL is now approaching Port Huron. Maybe'll I drive down to the Detroit River later and watch her go by. I bet that Lake Superior crossing in 45-knot winds was memorable.

[Dutchman]

My son was in South Haven, Michigan last Thursday and took this picture. The Lake still had not calmed down. The lighthouse is not showing.

[Huckelberry145]

I wonder how many people know that the NBA basketball team the L.A. Lakers got their name as a memorial to the ships, "lakers" that have sailed the great lakes. The team originated in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

[Dutchman]

I didn't know Huckelberry's interesting fact about the L.A. Lakers--but I'm not a basketball fan.

[jimh]

How many people know that the NBA basketball team the L.A. Lakers got their name as a memorial to the ships, "lakers" that have sailed the Great Lakes?

I suspect very few Great Lakes boating people know that, and even fewer basketball fans.