Great Colonial Hurricane of 1635

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Great Colonial Hurricane

Category 3 hurricane (SSHS)

Formed

August 1635

Dissipated

August 25, 1635

Highest
winds

115 mph (185 km/h) (1-minute sustained)

Lowest pressure

Unknown

Fatalities

46+ direct

Damage

Unknown

Areas
affected

Virginia, New England, other areas? (Information scarce)

Part of the
1635 Atlantic hurricane season

The Great Colonial Hurricane of 1635 was a severe hurricane that hit the Jamestown Settlement and the Massachusetts Bay Colony during August of 1635.

1 Storm history
2 Impact
3 See also
4 References
5 External links

[edit] Storm history

The hurricane was likely a Cape Verde-type hurricane, considering its intensity. It may have taken a similar track to the Great Atlantic Hurricane of 1944 and Hurricane Edna of 1954. It is first mentioned on August 24, 1635, in Jamestown, Virginia [1]. Though it did affect Jamestown as a major hurricane, no references to damage by the hurricane can be found, probably because the hurricane was evidently moving rapidly more and more east of the settlement. The storm's eye is believed to have passed between Boston and Plymouth. Although neither the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Scale nor the equipment necessary to measure the storm's characteristics had yet been invented, contemporary descriptions are consistent with a Category 3 or greater hurricane.

[edit] Impact

Much of the area between Providence and the Piscataqua River was damaged by the hurricane; some damage was still noticeable 50 years later. A letter from Governor William Bradford said that the storm drowned seventeen Native Americans and toppled or destroyed thousands of trees; many houses were also flattened. From an account by Antony Thacher, it also states that there were twenty-three people aboard a little bark named the "Watch and Wait" and owned by a Mr. Isaac Allerton. The boat sank, and Thacher and his wife were the only ones to survive the shipwreck. Thus the island off of Cape Ann-where Thacher survived-was named in his honor and is still known as Thacher's Island.

In Narragansett Bay, the tide was fourteen feet above the ordinary tide and drowned eight Native Americans fleeing from their wigwams. The highest ever such recorded value for a New England Hurricane...a twenty-foot storm tide, at Narragansett Bay but did not impact Massachucetts, through close in proximity and the low-lying tracts of Dorchester, ruining the farms and landscape (from accounts of William Bradford and John Winthrop.

In a recent re-analysis of data from the Great Colonial Hurricane of 1635 by scientists of the Atmospheric Oceanic Meteorological Laboratory's Hurricane Re-analysis project [B.R. J Jarvinen, B. R., 2006 "Storm Tides in Twelve Tropical Cyclones (including Four Intense New England Hurricanes)." Report for FEMA/National Hurricane Center, 99pp.] reanalyzes the hurricane as being a category four hurricane when it made landfall along the Eastern coast of Long Island, New York, and Category Three at subsequent landfall along the border of Rhodes Island and Connecticut. In addition, the hurricane is noted for potentially causing the highest storm surge along the Eastern Coast of the United States in recorded history...near the head of Narragansett Bay with a value of approximately 20 feet. Also, the study indicates that this hurricane was very likely the most intense hurricane to ever impact the New England region in recorded history. In addition, reconstruction of the track and intensity using storm surge modelling indicates that the hurricane potentially had an intensity of 938 mb when it made landfall near Long Island.