Talk:Great Hurricane of 1780

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Contents

[edit] Deaths

If you give a range of 20-30,000 killed, doesn't that imply an estimate? RedWolf 06:19, Nov 14, 2003 (UTC)

I have added Hurricane Katrina to the list. The death toll seems like it will be quite substantial as well. (Anonymous user) 00:09, Sep 4, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Dates

I have some information that might extend the hurricane's timeline and location. From http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/hrd/Landsea/history/

Year: 1780

Date(s): 14-19 October

Principle Affected Area(s): Northeast Florida coastal waters - not counted

Landfall Point(s): Unknown, likely an offshore event.

Remarks: Apparently the series of legendary October hurricanes were making their presence felt along the northeast Florida coast. It is possible the strongest of the three, the 11-18 October “Great Hurricane”, may have come closer to the Florida peninsula than previously thought. Mr. Josiah Smith made the following report from St. Augustine, “Thursday 19th October. The weather as mentioned on Saturday, growing worse, by Sunday evening it came on to Rain and blow excessive hard, and till the evening of yesterday was a mere Gale at about N. N. E. by which means the Sea came in very heavily upon the front of the Town and raised the Tide several feet higher than common, and which ran through some of the Lanes up to the Second Street, above 150 feet from the bay...” South Carolina Historical Quarterly, Volume XXXIII, 1932, Josiah Smith Diary, Page 24.

Close Severe erosion occurred with this event.

It is possible the “Great Hurricane” came closer to the coast than previously realized and the pressure gradient may have been very tight along the coast. This report could also be attributed to “Solano’s Storm” in the later portion of the period.

Summary: This storm will not be counted as a hurricane, but it may be that the fringes of one, or more, of the series of “Great Hurricanes” influenced the study area.

Should we mention it at all in the article? There is only a few days of history on the storm, and this may be an extension of it. Hurricanehink 02:10, 8 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Todo

There may not be much more information on this storm in which case it could qualify as B-class. But at least it needs references. Jdorje 07:13, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

Jdoje, since the 7th and 8th most fatal storms are 1775, 1776, you might slightly extend your worst hurricanes table so people are better aware that bad news can come in several kinds of "triples" - next time they might leave sooner, prepare better or administrate more wisely. Specific to the GH of 1780 details, you might look into the report of bark stripping - that indicates extreme wind speeds, perhaps 200 mph, either water spouts galore or truly a great hurricane... --69.178.31.177 20:08, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Sun Spots?

What is the information on sun spots doing in the article? I read the link and it provided only a vague hints at why the information might be relevant. Does anyone have concrete information that sunspots and intense hurricanes might be linked? If so, add the paragraph back, but it looked like vandalism to me, so I took the liberty of removing it. —Cuiviénen (Cuivië)

I agree that the link was bogus, but it seems fairly likely the information was accurate. If a real source can be found, the info could be added back...though obviously this article isn't the best place for it, there's so little real information on this storm that anything interesting could help. Jdorje 04:28, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

The storm record is a fact, the sunspot record and (longer) corresponding radionucleotide depositions are facts. Globally several sets of PhD+ astrophysicists have embryonic research in this area (solar activity) for climate and weather. Frankly I have never seen a good physical/energy model of the magnetosphere and solar activity for weather/climate, among several potential fundamental areas of solar activity modelling. (Not that I have especially looked either. Also IPCC has simply noted solar activity modeling as a wistful wish and seems to have ignored even doing the fundamentals). Interesting trivia seems quite appropriate, given the physical parallels, now and then. Progressive science frequently starts with observation and curiosity followed by measurement, record keeping and analysis. --69.178.31.177 20:08, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

They may be facts but you still have to include sources. The link you give doesn't mention anything about the 1780 period. — jdorje (talk) 20:56, 10 February 2006 (UTC)


The trivia section has two serious points about an anomalous coincidence: (1) that really bad news can come in clusters, a realization that the folks in NO did not seem to fully grasp - i.e. a hundred year storm doesn't mean you are safe for another 99 and in fact something worse might be coming (review the hurricane KIA results, 1775 through 1785, serially by year), (2) solar & (exo-)atmospheric physics for weather is not a done deal either, but this is only an interesting note of coincidence, not a claim.--Incogm 10:03, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

And, about a year later, I have once again removed that trivia section. Still no one has provided any source correlating (let alone suggesting a causal relationship) sunspot activity and intense or destructive hurricanes. Until such a source is provided, addition of random information about sunspots in 1780 will be treated as vandalism and reverted on the spot. —Cuiviénen 15:05, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

Hello all. Upon reading this discussion board I was quite interested in the whole sun spot issue and figured I'd do some quick browsing. I am studying hurricanes at the University of Florida and trying to discover the many many variables that exist especially relating to larger time scales, like sunspot activity or the 40 and 1500 year activity cycles. Of course more time need be spent before adding something, but I came across an article that may be of interest. I don't have a clue how often these pages are checked, but I shall leave the link here. [[1]] I can look for more sources if necessary, though this article references several others as well. I'm quite surprised that someone has not gone about attempting to recreate the conditions under which bark can be stripped from a tree, whether solely winds or by wind and rain combined, and even the water spout/tornado idea. Anyways, I hope this one link suffices to merit sunspot mention as a possibile variable in the evolution of a monster storm, especially since we have been experiencing sunspot activity, global temperature rises, increased tropical activity, and others. Such a storm may present itself again in our lifetime even.~Jeff Inxtricablfate 07:38, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Automated Peer-Review

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[edit] Article problems

Was just reading this article (seems a lot has been added, with some sources) and a lot does not add up. I'm gonna do some changes, add any comments here.

  • The death toll has been changed to '24000' now. Yet the most accurate source given, the NHC, still lists it as >20000 or >22000. The source that does say 24,000 says it is incomplete (and is obviously a less reliable source than the NHC).
  • It is claimed that St Lucia had the most fatalities with 6,000. In the next paragraph it is claimed there were 9,000 fatalities on Martinique.
  • Some of the text appears to be lifted directly from the sources. In particular the paragraph about St Vincent has many phrases taken directly from the Perez source.
  • Some mention should be made of the other two deadly 1780 hurricanes - if only to avoid confusion. A link to a season article in the intro would be appropriate.
  • Deaths do not add up? 4500(barbados) + 6000(stlucia) + 9000(martinique) + 4000(french fleet) + 4000(eustacius) = 27,500. Clearly this conflicts with the NHC number as well. More digging into sources would be useful here - it's important not to believe every number given by every source; when sources conflict some way should be found to resolve them. To start with a table of deaths by island would be helpful (many, many islands in the path are left out of that addition obviously).
  • Wind speed. The value of 200 mph is listed several places throughout the article. It seems this comes entirely from the claim that bark was stripped from the trees in Barbados, and some other random guy's claim that this would take 200 mph winds to achieve.

— jdorje (talk) 06:53, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

Don't be so quick to trust the NHC as canonical. The NHC is just another organisation in this case; its not like it issued advisories or produced a TCR - certainly it is not a primary source for this storm. The individual damages are from the first reference in the article. The table on the NHC site is a referenced article, for example this one.--Nilfanion (talk) 11:13, 5 April 2007 (UTC)
Point taken - though the NHC is a secondary source mostly based on other secondary sources, with knowledgeable people acting as the filter. If we had primary or secondary sources listing the death toll from each island, could we add those together to get a total death toll of our own? Or is that original research? — jdorje (talk) 19:59, 5 April 2007 (UTC)
That's probably fine. Hurricanehink (talk) 19:59, 5 April 2007 (UTC)
Why was the table moved to the left side? It looks a bit awkward now. Hurricanehink (talk) 20:32, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Deaths

Storm deaths by island or region
(estimates)
Island/region Deaths
Barbados 4,500
Saint Vincent  ?
Grenada  ?
Saint Lucia 6,000
French fleet 4,000
Martinique 9,000
Dominica  ?
Guadeloupe  ?
Antigua  ?
Saint Kitts  ?
Sint Eustatius 4,000-5,000
Puerto Rico  ?
Dominican Republic  ?
Total 22,000+
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