A suggestion the Great Gale of 1821 was worse than Hurricane Sandy, and Alarmists are wrong to suggest otherwise.
Guest post by Caleb Shaw
While I am often humbled, when it comes to predicting the weather, I did correctly predict the fact that, when the inevitable happened, and a hurricane did clobber the East Coast, that certain individuals would use the event to promote their Global Warming Agenda.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/08/21/hurricane-warning-mckibben-alert/
The chief fact used, in the Alarmist argument about Sandy, is the simple truth the tide which New York City experienced during Sandy “beat the record.” This gives Alarmists the chance to dust off their favorite word, “unprecedented.” They love that word, because by suggesting something is, “without previous instance; never before known or experienced; unexampled or unparalleled,” they somehow manage to convince themselves it means something has gone haywire; something is dreadfully wrong.
There are two good ways to calm such people down. First, it is helpful to explain to them that every newborn child is “unprecedented,” and “without previous instance; never before known or experienced; unexampled or unparalleled,” because each newborn has fingerprints like none ever seen before on Earth. Therefore, there is no reason to panic. In fact, a new baby, and newness in general, is actually a delightful thing. Without newness life gets pretty darn boring.
In fact, that is why it is so much fun to try to predict the weather, even though you are bound to be humbled. Weather is always producing things never seen before. Weather is forever fresh and new.
The second way to calm down Alarmists is to point out hurricanes have happened before, and have actually been worse. Alarmists will then, of course, state no storm has ever been as bad as Sandy, for none had such a surge in New York. At this point you need to pat the back of their hand, say “now-now” and “there-there,” (and a few other anxiety-reducing things,) and ask them how much they know about the 1821 storm that set the “old” record.
Most Alarmists fail to study history much. Unfortunately, most don’t want to. They have their minds made up, because they hunger for an impossible thing called “closure,” which has a side effect of creating a closed mind. However if you coddle them, and ask them to “listen just to humor you,” you might get them to look at the history of the Great Gale of 1821.
Unlike Sandy, that hurricane didn’t dawdle. It came ripping up the coast, and was in and out of New York in a matter of hours. The people of the time reported a tide 13 feet above the ordinary high tide, but the best studies put the peak tide at 11.2 feet. Sandy reached 13.88 feet.
(You cannot fail to notice how much more scientific we have become. Back in 1821 they only measured a surge in tenths-of-a-foot. Now we measure in hundredths.)
Simple arithmetic suggests the 1821 storm’s high water was 2.68 feet lower than Sandy’s. However the interesting thing about the 1821 storm is that it came barreling through at dead low tide. Tides in New York vary roughly 6 feet between low and high tides.
Therefore, to be fair, it seems you should add six feet to the 1821 storm, if you want to compare that storm with Sandy’s surge at high tide. This would increase the 1821 high water to 17.2 feet.
On top of that, you have to factor in the influence of the full moon during Sandy. That adds an extra foot to the high tide. Add an extra foot to the 1821 score and you have 18.2 feet.
Joe D’Aleo at WeatherBELL brought up yet another fascinating factor: 1821 was at the end of the Little Ice Age, when a great chill had cooled the oceans. Because water contracts when it cools, the seas were roughly a foot lower back then. Therefore, to be fair, we need to add yet another foot to the 1821 storm, which gives us a total of 19.2 feet.
Joe Bastardi, also over at WeatherBELL, can do better than that. All you need to do is shift the track of the 1938 “Long Island Express” hurricane, with it’s last minute jog to the northwest, eighty miles to the West-by-West-southwest, and you have a storm surge of well over twenty feet surging up the Hudson River. That is practically a tsunami, and likely would reach Albany.
In other words, Sandy wasn’t so tough. In some ways, Sandy was a Wuss, and an imperfect storm, compared to 1821, which had wind gusts toppling chimneys in Philadelphia, entire houses in New York City, and flattening forests up through New England.
In conclusion, things could get a lot worse for New York City, even if storms are not a bit “unprecedented.” Things could be worse even if they are ordinary!!!!!
It helps a lot if you get a bit wild-eyed, as you say this. Alarmists are better able to listen to wild-eyed types, than they are able to listen to dull, factual sanity.
It might help even more if you grab them by the lapels and repetitively hoist them up and slam them down, launching into a rave. You’ll have to make up your own rave, (and it helps a lot if you practice the wild-eyes in a mirror beforehand,) but my own rave would be something like this:
“You stupid, ignorant, son-of-a-Susquash! We have known for decades New York‘s subways would flood in a perfect storm. It was a real threat. Why didn‘t we build flood-gates, to close up the subways in the face of storm surges or even earthquake tsunamis? Why did we waste billions on windmills and Solyndra?…”
You can move on from there, but in some cases all your efforts will be in vain.
Never stop trying, for you never know when an idiot might be redeemed, but don’t be discouraged if you fail, for in some cases explaining Truth to Alarmists is preaching to the mire.
We have a version of all this in the UK, it’s called: ‘the closer the weather happens to London, the more catastrophic it is!’
I was brought up around London but lived in Scotland for 7 years in my 20s. For those that no anything of these parts, you will understand that the concept of ‘wind’ in Scotland is more vivid than in London, since each and every autumn and winter you will see close to hurricane force winds in the NW, on the mountain tops and on the Orkneys/Shetlands/Western Isles. Not for nothing are most houses in Northern Scotland only a single storey high……
When the 1987 hurricane came, it was dreadful because it minced up half the trees in the South East of England. It was no worse than a bad day on the top of Cairngorm in Scotland. But all the media hacks live in the SE, so they were affected.
In 1991, Western Scotland was treated to two weeks of snowfall in the mountains which created a quite magnificent snowbase for those that like winter mountaineering. We’re talking 6 – 12 feet depending on aspect on the mountain. No-one reported it in the SE. If you ever get 20cm in London, it’s a national disaster requiring ‘the world to be saved’ by investing billions in snow-clearing gear which, had it been present in the 1970s, would have lain completely unused between January 1971 and September 1979 (I know this because, bar one morning in May, our toboggan lay completely unused during my growing up years).
The first thing scientists need to do is to correlate the apocalyptic nature of the weather with the number of media newshounds who are affected by it. The formula for the apocalypse is as follows:
1. If it happens in Yellowstone Park, multiply by 0.7. Multiply by 10 if some idiotic preppy brat backpacking without proper gear gets snowed in as a result.
2. If it happens in Colorado, multiply by 1.0. Unless Mile High Stadium has to cancel the football game on NBC, in which case multiply by 50.
3. If it happens in Texas, Florida or California, multiply it by 3. If 15 feet of snow fall in Mammoth, who cares, if 6 inches fall in LA, wall-to-wall coverage on the news.
4. If it happens in the President’s home state or in the NE of the USA, multiply by 7. If it affects New York City, multiply by 750.
5. If it happens anywhere else, does anyone give a shit?
If you build your house 3 m above sea level you can expect to be flooded a few times in your lifetime. I’m surprised that people are allowed to rebuild in these low lying areas, often replacing bungalows with glass covered mansions. Who even offers flood insurance in these areas?
I object to this part of your post:
“…Joe D’Aleo at WeatherBELL brought up yet another fascinating factor: 1821 was at the end of the Little Ice Age, when a great chill had cooled the oceans. Because water contracts when it cools, the seas were roughly a foot lower back then. Therefore, to be fair, we need to add yet another foot to the 1821 storm, which gives us a total of 19.2 feet…”
Adding to the 1821 record by going from low to high tide, and also by allowing for the extra tidal surge due to lunar position in its orbit is definitely OK, but it does not make sense to add another foot due to the rise in sea level from 1821 to now. Clearly these storm-surge records have the understood qualifier that they are taken with respect to the average sea level — so tidal changes and extra strong lunar effects are valid adjustments but a centuries long change in average sea level is not.
“You stupid, ignorant, son-of-a-Susquash! We have known for decades New York‘s subways would flood in a perfect storm. It was a real threat. Why didn‘t we build flood-gates, to close up the subways in the face of storm surges or even earthquake tsunamis? Why did we waste billions on windmills and Solyndra?…”
Because adult, er, rational leadership is so hard to find nowadays.
🙂
It doesn’t help when your rebuttal has some significant flaws. You should rethink a few things.
Tides in New York vary roughly 6 feet between low and high tides.
Even the spring tides at The Battery are typically under 6 feet. http://www.saltwatertides.com/cgi-local/newyork.cgi
“On top of that, you have to factor in the influence of the full moon during Sandy. That adds an extra foot to the high tide. ”
No, that “extra foot” is ALREADY figured into your (slightly exaggerated) 6 foot tides. It does not need to be added again. In fact, since the 1821 storm was a neap tide, you need to add a foot to the LOW tides.
So, by rounding up the tides, double counting the effects of the spring tides on the high end and skipping the effects of neap tides on the low ends, you end up with an estimate several feet too high for the 1821 storm.
“…which had wind gusts toppling chimneys in Philadelphia [referring to the 1821 storm]”
That doesn’t sound quite so alarmist when restated “where winds of over 40 mph (60 km/h) downed trees and chimneys” [wikipedia]. Sandy brought higher winds than that to Philly.
As for “unprecedented” ..
* This area has been hit two years in a row by hurricanes, which IS unprecedented.
* This area has never (since records have been kept) been hit by a hurricane this late in the year, which is ALSO unprecedented.
Both of those do indeed suggest something odd with hurricanes lately (although random statistical fluctuations can and do occur).
All good points except for the flood gates. A system that fails for a few weeks every 108 years is acceptable. Especially if that failure only results in inconvenience rather than any actual hazard to life.
Sandy may be unprecedented. It’s surge reached all the way across the Atlantic to the shores of Tripoli -washing away the inconvenient truths of Benghazi (and much else besides) from American television screens. You can fool most of the people some of the time and there’s not much time till the election. The Democrats are hoping that Sandy’s surge will become Obama’s surge. [It has more force than the ‘Prairie Fire’ metaphor of Obama’s old ‘Weather’ buddies.] It is much easier for Mayor Bloomberg to blame the damage and disruption to his city on smokestacks in China and cow farts in Nebraska than on his own administration’s lack of preparation. And a compliant press is milking this for all it is worth. In that, MSM et al. are no different from some Minister of Mufti taking advantage of a natural disaster -‘God/Allah/Gaia is punishing mankind for its sins’. Sandy may be unprecedented because it may be the first storm to sweep a candidate back into the White House.
In August 1893 NY was hit by a Hurricane that took out Hog Island with a storm surge that flooded everything below Canal Street.. it was reported that the only thing that saved the city was the storm hit at low tide. BTW a few days later another Hurricane hit Savannah Georgia killing 2000 people, the Red Cross was delayed in getting to the disaster as they were still recovering from the hurricane that hit in that area in June of that year. With today’s population density of NY and Savannah if those storms hit today the devastation is beyond comprehension.
Blaming AGW only takes the focus off of our need to prepare for major storm surge in hurricane prone areas with improved sea walls, levies, and surge barriers.. Subsidizing flood insurance is an incentive to build in high risk areas.. more building without adequate infrastructure to mitigate flooding is a formula for disaster..
Thanks Caleb!
It’s good to see that someone has put together a summary of a ‘running of the numbers’ and shown how equalizing (or ‘handicapping’) for environmental/meteorological/climatic (e.g. end of LIA and a ‘compensated’ sea level owing to temperature) and celestial conditions (e.g. tide cycle) that existed during past storms would have changed their affects dramatically.
Now, if an op-ed can get inserted into the ‘paper of record’ just for full effect …
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Referencing primary source(s) is ALWAYS a good thing. It also removes the focus from the presenter to the facts … ‘building on the work of others’ is a time-honored tradition and has enabled us to make the technological progress we have (the phrase * ‘… standing on the shoulders of giants’ comes to mind.)
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* nani gigantum humeris insidentes – the metaphor whose contemporary interpretation means “One who develops future intellectual pursuits by understanding and building on the research and works created by notable thinkers of the past“.
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eyesonu clarified some attribution about Sandy for me in this post-
http://wattsupwiththat.com/tips-and-notes-3/#comment-1132974
“It shows tide, moon, and wind related effects of Battery NY. Looks like the actual wind related part of the surge resulting from Sandy was five (5) feet above what the tide would have been without the wind and low pressure bulge. I spent quite a bit of time to find this because a 13 foot storm surge sound high.”
Alarmists and facts.
Oil and water.
Never the twain shall meet.
My minor addition to the rant: We have known for decades New York‘s subways would flood in a perfect storm. It was a real threat. Yet by your actions you think getting salt out of our resturants is more important than keeping salt-water out of the subways.
There may be more to it than that; inundation by highly corrosive, conductive sea water which upon removal results in a semi-conductive ‘residue’ presents the real problem; we are going to get to know EXACTLY the time required to get the system back ‘in service’ going forward … that may be more than just a few weeks. Juxtaposition that with the fact the NYC is not going away anytime in the next probably 200 years and it might be economically justifiable (replacement costs of ‘ruined’, required system-operational equipment could tip the economic balance toward flood gates.)
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Re: David Ross (shores of Tripoli).
Hurricane Sandy might or might not have been the perfect storm. But 2011’s Hurricane Irene was the perfect dry run for New York preparations. With Irene, New York got lucky on timing and path. Just as there are memos and cables leaking out of Washington warning of impending doom and pleading for actions to reduce the threat, there must be memos and proposals after Irene to reduce the threat of storms to New York.
And the reason for that full moon? YEP! You guessed it, CO2. Too much CO2 is why Obama loaned money to Fisker Car company and too much CO2 is why their engineers screwed up the circuitry that allowed the batteries to overheat in a short circuit and catch fire when submerged in salt water from Sandy’s surge which was because of CO2. The real reason Bloomberg limits the size of soft drinks? YEP! To limit the CO2 coming from them.
Please pat, (1) an examination of objective accomplishments in each man’s past tells volumes, as does their selection of past associates, (2) don’t believe all of what you hear vis-a-vis campaign rhetoric or ‘the news’.
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Here is a nice article from 1888 that describes the discovery of an entire forest of ancient cedars in New Jersey that were felled by a cyclone of unimaginable intensity:
http://bassriverhistory.blogspot.com/2010/09/mining-cedar.html
Oh if only we could examine some cores….
From the 1888 article:
According to Clarence Deming and Dr. Maurice Beasely, eminent geological authorities in Southern New Jersey, the sea either broke in upon the swamps or the land subsided and the salt water reached the trees. This destroyed the life of many of them, and subsequently some prehistoric cyclone swept over the forest and leveled it to the earth.
The word “unprecedented” is not just popular among alarmists. There wasn’t one Olympic event in London that I watched that didn’t have something that had never happened before that the announcers weren’t hyping strongly. It gets a bit tiresome when they’re noting that no two women of the same nationality have ever finished 1 and 3, although back in 1956 two women from another country did finish 1 and 4 – but even then this event was played under different rules that didn’t have as stringent requirements for the shoes. Same principle as when everyone is special.
Next weekend, my stepson willl be getting married for the second time, which will be unprecedented for him and possibly even in the building the ceremony will be held in and certainly never before involving this particular woman.
… notably, this is the same (incorrect for northern hemisphere) direction as shown on Algore’s movie cover ‘inconvenient truth’ …
In this case, we are building on the shoulders of man-bear-pig …
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Thanks, Caleb.
BTW, isn’t the hurricane in the graphic turning the wrong direction?
Rhys Jaggar – Here in Oregon substitute “Portland” for “London” and we have the same problem.
Oregon coast gets 75kts to 100kts of wind fairly regularly. I’d love to see some MSM “Hurricane
Studs” stand on Cape Blanco in the middle of a fair Sou’ Wester…
The damage from Sandy could easily have been paid out of the mind-boggling billions spent on alarmist advocacy science.
@ur momisugly Tim Folkerts
I think 1954/55 beats 2011/12:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_New_York_hurricanes
1954 — Hurricane Hazel – wind gust of 113 mph at Battery Park, highest ever recorded in New York City.
August 31, 1954 — Hurricane Carol makes landfall on Long Island and produces wind gusts of 120 miles per hour (190 km/h) on Montauk Point.[3] On eastern Long Island near where Carol made landfall, a pressure of 960 mbar is recorded.[28] Winds on the island gust to 120 mph (195 km/h). The hurricane’s storm surge covers the Montauk Highway in Montauk, effectively isolating eastern Long Island for a period of time. Due to the compact nature of the storm, most of Long Island is largely unaffected by the hurricane.[28] Specific damage totals for New York are unknown, although the storm in its entirety causes $460 million (1954 USD) in damage.[28]
September 10, 1954 — Hurricane Edna tracks to the east of Long Island producing 9 inches (230 mm) of rain.[3] Prior to the storm, New York City orders an emergency standby for the majority of its hospitals, and subways.[29]
August 13, 1955 — Hurricane Connie produces 13.24 inches (370 mm) of rain in Southeast New York, although damage is unknown.
It’s interesting that a mild El Nino brought this tropical storm further up the coast, the tropical storm seemed not to have as much energy in the form of high winds but grew larger and less intense as it reached landfall meeting a large cold front as it quickly dissipated. As far as I can tell this was a typical storm, It was a very complex storm with many factors mentioned above such as High tides etc…
While watching the footage of the aftermath I noticed the majority of the damage was to timber framed housing and various other timber framed structures from strong winds, large storm surge in coastal areas typical of any storm, also fire was a destructive factor, maybe future storm preparation could involve securing mains gas supply in an evacuation area, also the construction of homes and other structures in coastal areas should always consider using a stronger material than timber, an investment in a brick home on a solid foundation would have easily survived this storm with maybe some water damage, people who will need to rebuild should get a good construction engineering company with a team of bricklayers. Oh! and the moral of the story about the three little pigs should be taught in schools, along with the little boy who cried wolf and chicken little.