Weather Whys; Tracking Hurricanes

This is Weatherwise. In the middle of October 1954, Hurricane Hazel brought havoc all the way up the east coast of the United States. High winds, heavy rains, and flooding produced deaths and damage from South Carolina to New York and even on into Canada. Fortunately, the big storm didn't come as a surprise to coastal residents. Air Bureau meteorologists had been tracking the tropical system since its birth in the Caribbean the week before. On October 5, the first clues surfaced when weather reports from ships at sea indicated a drop in barometric pressure and an increase in winds near the island of Grenada. That disturbance drifted slowly toward the west at about 5 miles per hour. But with the help of the warm Caribbean waters, it quickly developed into a tropical storm. And by October 8th, the system had become a powerful hurricane with maximum sustained winds of 125 miles per hour.

Today, we would call it a Category 3 on the 5-point SAFOR Simpson scale. Shortly after turning into a hurricane, Hazel started behaving strangely. On October 10th, she suddenly made a 90-degree turn toward the north and devastated communities on the west end of Haiti. On the 13th, she swerved to the northwest instead of veering east as most hurricanes do. Strangely, she began picking up speed and on October 14th, 1954, Hurricane Hazel bore down on the South Carolina coast at the rate of 40 miles per hour. She made landfall at Myrtle Beach, but unlike most hurricanes, she didn't lose much strength after hitting land. On South Carolina, all the way to Canada, people felt the unfortunate results. Whether wise is a production of the Center for Analysis and Prediction of Storms at the University of Oklahoma and is made possible by a grant from the National Science Foundation. I'm Drew Barlow.