Reflections on a Fierce Winter Storm

Nestled under the Throg's Neck Bridge in the Bronx Borough of New York City, the Locust Point Yacht Club has weathered many violent storms in the 54 years since it was founded. The club's harbor is surrounded by Throg's Neck and Locust Point, which stretch out into Long Island Sound like two giant, sheltering arms to protect the buildings and docks. So even when Hurricane Gloria came blasting up the coast in 1985, wrecking thousands of boats from Maryland to Maine, the Locust Point Yacht Club was barely touched.

Then in December 1992, almost half of the 100 or so boats stored on club grounds were wrecked and the buildings battered, not by a hurricane or even a freak tornado, but by one of the northeasters that routinely sweep up the Atlantic coast every fall and winter.

Unlike a hurricane, which concentrates its fury over a span of maybe several hours, this northeaster had winds that reached hurricane force and continued unabated for almost three days, through high and low tides. Water was blown up and over the club's seawall, sinking boats that had their drain plugs and outdrives removed for winter lay-up and bashing many others against buildings and against each other. One of the boats that broke loose came crashing through the front of the clubhouse, doing considerable damage to the venerable old building. In its 54 years, the Locust Point Yacht Club had never seen anything like it.

While all northeasters bring high winds and precipitation, some have the potential to develop into meteorological nightmares, with driving rain or snow, and violent, hurricane force winds. In Nova Scotia, locals call these monsters "winter hurricanes" but meteorologists scrupulously avoid the word hurricane, referring to them simply as "intense" or "dangerous" storms in their forecasts.

Louis Uccellini, Chief of Meteorological Operations at the National Meteorological Center in Camp Springs, Maryland says the more dangerous storms tend to occur in cycles. In the late fifties, he says, the coast got slammed by a violent northeaster almost every season followed soon afterward by a few seasons of relative calm. Uccellini notes that after a respite in the eighties, the east coast has experienced several intense storms in the nineties.

Meteorologists have gotten much better at predicting these violent northeasters. Only a few years ago, forecasters would not have been able to predict the December, 1992 storm. But thanks to the development of complex meteorological models, Uccellini says forecasters were able to warn people three or four days in advance that the '92 storm had the potential to be very dangerous. Dr. Alan Nierow, at the NOAA office in Herndon, Virginia, says that as early as December 5th, before the storm had actually developed, models were predicting the possible formation of a violent storm.

But even though "we nailed the thing," as Uccellini says, forecasters felt there was a problem communicating the extreme danger of the storm to the public. He speculates that if a hurricane instead of a northeaster had been heading up the coast, Dan Rather would have been giving updates from Jones Beach. Instead, meteorologists were astounded when an ABC broadcast referred to the storm as the "surprise northeaster."

Not everybody was surprised. Commercial mariners who monitored the broadcasts took the approaching storm very seriously. So did offshore fishermen. But Tom Delco, a surveyor at Long Island's Eastern Marine, says most boat owners had already secured their boats for the winter and tended to treat the storm as just another northeaster. Delco mentions a beautiful 56' ketch that chafed through its docklines and was sunk after impaling itself on a submerged barge. It seems the skipper hadn't bothered to add chafe protection.

Delco says that, like most hurricanes, it was the surge and not the winds that did the worst damage. Some of the larger boats stored ashore got swept away by rising water and would have been difficult to save, even if owners had been aware of the approaching storm. But many other boats, especially boats stored on trailers, could have been towed to higher ground if owners had acted quickly. And boats stored in the water, like the 56' ketch, would almost certainly have survived if the owner had added extra docklines and chafe protection.

Taking Northeasters Seriously

Certainly it would be helpful if a monster northeaster had an ominous sounding name like its better known counterparts, the hurricane. A forecast that mentions the approach of a Hurricane Bob or Andrew, after all, would tend to have a more galvanizing effect than a forecast that merely mentions an approaching low front, no matter what adjectives are used.

Uccellini, however, winces at the suggestion and says that meteorologically "he'd get killed" if he compared a northeaster to a hurricane in a forecast. But he also acknowledges that a northeaster has the destructive power of a hurricane and should be taken just as seriously by the public. "We've gotten better at predicting these things and the public should be aware that northeasters can cause serious damage along the coast."