I was only 2 years old at the time but still have some hazy distant memory of a storm that may have initiated my interest in meteorology later in life. I was living in Passaic, NJ at the time in an apartment complex called Barry Gardens with my Mom. My Dad, at that time, was a merchant seaman and away from home for extended periods. I can remember being scared of the sound of the howling wind outside that afternoon and the darkness caused by the loss of power that night. That stormy day plus Hurricane Hazel in October of 1954 likely planted the weather bug in my brain.
The November 1950 storm caused widespread flooding and wind damage along the US East Coast while inland areas were coped with heavy snowfalls and very low temperatures. The storm developed over North Carolina then deepened rapidly into an “East Coast Bomb” as it tracked northward into Pennsylvania before turning northwest en-route to Lake Erie and later curving southwest and then east across Ohio.
The storm caused havoc along the East Coast as the high winds coincided with the high tide creating widespread flooding along the New Jersey, Long Island and New England Coasts. Wind gusts were clocked at 94 mph in New York City, 108 mph at Newark Airport, 110 mph at Concord, NH and 160 mph at the top of Mt. Washington, NH!
The storm flooded runways at New York’s La Guardia Airport where easterly winds of up to 62 mph pushed a large storm surge up Long Island Sound. Image credit: Queens Borough Public Library, Long Island Division via wunderground.com.
While strong winds and rain pelted the East Coast, farther inland heavy snow and blizzard conditions prevailed. Nearly 28 inches of snow fell in Pittsburgh, about 36 inches in Steubenville, OH and up to 62 inches was reported at Coburn Creek, WV. Strong temperature contrasts were reported across relatively short distances during the height of the storm. While Buffalo, NY was reporting rain and temperatures in the 50′s, Pittsburgh about 200 miles to the south was reporting heavy snow and temperatures falling into the single digits.
The cause of all this appears to have been a strong upper level low that moved rapidly from south-central Canada late on the 22nd of November as an Omega Block was developing over the North Atlantic Ocean south of Greenland. By late on the 23rd, Thanksgiving Day, the upper low was intensifying across Wisconsin and was en-route to North Carolina as the strong Omega block held over the Atlantic.
SuperStorm November 24 1950 03Z 500mb Analysis
Early on the 24th a surface low pressure area was centered over the Great Lakes with a strong frontal trough extended southeastward across the Appalachians then south-southwestward into the Gulf of Mexico. As the upper low continued to intensify and drop southeastward towards North Carolina, a secondary surface low developed over the Eastern Carolinas. The conditions were now set for a “Coastal Bomb”. The surface low deepened very rapidly over Eastern North Carolina late on the 24th tracking northward to near Washington, DC by the early morning hours of the 25th. At the same time a strong High-pressure held nearly stationary over Eastern Canada causing an unusually strong pressure gradient over the North Eastern States and very high winds.
SuperStorm November 25 1950 15Z 500mb Analysis
SuperStorm November 25 1950 1230Z Sfc Analysis
SuperStorm November 26 1950 1230Z SFC Analysis
With strong high pressure to the northeast the surface low turned northwestward tracking across Pennsylvania and reached Lake Erie by late in the evening of the 25th. Thereafter, as the upper level low lifted northward, the surface system began to weaken but not after devastating a large portion of the East Coast and Midwest. The storm, according to various accounts, took between 160 and 383 lives and caused up to $70 million in damages. At the time of the storm, the manually derived forecasts of the day were unable to anticipate this extreme event. The severity and lack of warning served as the inspiration for the creation of what is now the National Centers for Environmental Prediction. The more recent March 1993 storm was well predicted by computer models based on information gathered from the November 1950 event.
Sources and Links:
The Thanksgiving Weekend Storm of 1950– by Robert E. Kistler, NOAA/NWS/NCEP/EMC, Camp Springs, MD; and L. Uccellini and P. J. Kocin (Includes an excellent audio-visual presentation)
MONTHLY WEATHER REVIEW NOVEMBER 1950
THE DESTRUCTIVE STORM OF NOVEMBER 25-27,1950
CLARENCE D. SMITH, JR.
WBAN Analysis Center, U. S. Weather Bureau
THE DESTRUCTIVE STORM OF NOVEMBER 25-27,1950
CLARENCE D. SMITH, JR.
WBAN Analysis Center, U. S. Weather Bureau
Great Appalachian Storm of November 1950
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
November 23-27, 1950: Great Thanksgiving Storm
Severe Weather in Ohio Website
Severe Weather in Ohio Website
whats a SUPERstorm? what kind of description is that?
It is just a subjective term for any storm which is extreme in nature or unusually destructive. It is not a scientific description.
My son Matthew Holliday who is now a first year Meteorology Major at the University of Oklahoma was only, one month old when the SuperStorm of 1993 hit at our home in Anderson, S.C. We had very heavy rain on the front side of the cold front only to be followed by 4 inches of snow as the very deep low passed to our east over the coast of South Carolina. What a storm. And the storm of 1950. WOW. I guess all the forecasters were sold out on computer models after that storm, considering it was the first. Thanks for a great article. I can tell you are a fine man and do great work. We need more people just like you! Sincerely, Len R. Holliday
This phenomenal storm took place for around 24 hours in Fort Plain, NY, in the Mohawk Valley, where I then lived. I was so fascinated by it as a 9-year-old that I stayed up all night enjoying its howling, nearly hurricane-force winds. Amazingly, it was around 70 degrees — but just 150 miles or less away to the west, a blizzard was raging. (I wish I could have been there; I love BOTH high winds and blizzards! My relatives from Arlington, VA had been visiting, and they spent 12 hours fighting the storm all the way back south on the 400-mile trip, getting there at midnignt. THIS current superstorm MAY be the closest analogue to the 1950 storm since then. Either that, or the fantastic Blizzard of ’78! (I went on to become a meteorologist in the USAF — by choice. The 1950 storm made my a real FAN of exciting weather! And I still am!
I wish I weren’t stuck out here in Iowa for THIS one — Hurricane Sandy, on 10-29-12!)