Episode notes
In late October 1991 a buoy on the Scotian Shelf off Nova Scotia recorded a wave of 100.7 feet, driven entirely by wind. The setup began with the June 1991 eruption of Mount Pinatubo, whose aerosols cooled the globe by about half a degree Celsius and may have shifted the jet stream. A cold front left the US East Coast and became an extratropical low off Nova Scotia, but a high pressure ridge from the Appalachians to Greenland blocked it, forcing it southeast and then west in rare retrograde motion. On October 29 it absorbed Hurricane Grace. Its pressure fell to 972 millibars against a gradient of about 70 millibars, and days of hurricane force wind over a long fetch built enormous seas.
The Gloucester swordfishing boat Andrea Gail made last contact on October 28 about 180 miles northeast of Sable Island and was lost with six crew. The Coast Guard rescued 25 people at sea, but a New York Air National Guard HH-60G could not refuel in midair and ditched 90 miles south of Montauk; the cutter Tamaroa pulled four of five crew from 30 foot seas after six hours, and pararescue jumper Arden Richard Smith was never found. Onshore the storm caused over $200 million in damage across seven states, raising a 14.3 foot tide in Boston. By November 1 it formed an eye over the Gulf Stream and became a hurricane with 75 mph winds, but forecasters left it unnamed rather than announce Hurricane Henri to a battered coast.
- It dumped a record 4.4 inches of snow on Newfoundland while flooding the Hudson and Hackensack rivers.
- Thirty foot waves blew out windows at President George H. W. Bush's Kennebunkport home.
- The ocean swept away 50,000 lobster traps in New Hampshire and a row of houses on Fire Island.
- Highway 12 on North Carolina's Outer Banks was partly washed out, and 15 foot waves reached Puerto Rico.
- Forecaster Robert Case's description of a perfect convergence gave Sebastian Junger his book title.