All of this was rather remarkable as the storm reached its height at about 9:00 P.M. on October 4th, which was actually after midnight by London time and therefore on October 5th. Regardless of these circumstances, this is an instance of a storm that had a name—“Saxby’s Gale”—long before it occurred and for years afterward. Some weathermen thought that it was of tropical origin and had been a hurricane in lower latitudes, but if so, it came overland in its final days, for it was felt at Washington, Baltimore, Philadelphia, and in parts of New England on the third and early on the fourth, with heavy rains and gales in many localities.
A few hurricanes have been named for the peculiar paths they followed. One that was very unusual was the “Loop Hurricane” of October, 1910. It was an intense storm that passed over western Cuba, after which its center described a small loop over the waters between Cuba and Southern Florida. When it finally crossed the coast of western Florida, it caused tides so high that many people had to climb trees to keep from drowning. The “Yankee Hurricane” was so named by the Mayor of Miami. It was first observed to the east of Bermuda in late October, 1935, moving westward. On approaching the coast of the Carolinas, it took an extraordinary course, almost opposite to the normal track at that season, and went southwestward to southern Florida, with its calm center over Miami on the fourth of November. In the same year, another unusual storm known as the “Hairpin Hurricane” started in the western Caribbean, moved northeastward to Cuba, and then turned sharply southwestward to Honduras, describing a track shaped like a hairpin. It caused one of the worst disasters of that region. Loss of life exceeded two thousand.
Examples of storms named after ships are “Racer’s Storm” in 1837, named after a British sloop of war which was caught in its hurricane winds in the Yucatan Channel. Another one of great violence was called “Antje’s Hurricane,” because it dismasted a schooner of that name in the Atlantic in 1842.
In Puerto Rico, a hurricane may be given the name of the saint whose feast is celebrated on the day on which it strikes the island. The most famous are: Santa Ana, July 26, 1825; Los Angeles, August 2, 1837; Santa Elena, August 18, 1851; San Narcisco, October 29, 1867; San Felipe, September 13, 1876; San Ciriaco, August 8, 1899; and the second San Felipe, September 13, 1928.
Doubtless the worst hurricane during the twentieth century was the one in 1928, “San Felipe.” It caused damage estimated at fifty million dollars in Puerto Rico, and later struck Florida, causing losses estimated at twenty-five million dollars. Puerto Rico lost three hundred lives, Florida nearly two thousand.
One of the well-known storms of the West Indies was the “Padre Ruiz Hurricane,” which was named after a priest whose funeral services were being held in the church at Santa Barbara, Santo Domingo, on September 23, 1837, when the hurricane struck the island, causing an appalling loss of life and property destruction.
Before the end of the nineteenth century, a weatherman in Australia named Clement Wragge had begun giving girls’ names to tropical storms. Down in that part of the Southern Hemisphere, hurricanes are called willy-willies. They come from the tropics on a southwest course and turn to the south and southeast on approaching or passing Australia. Their winds spiral inward around the center in a clockwise direction—the opposite of the turning motion of our hurricanes.
Wragge was the government meteorologist in Queensland, and later ran a weather bureau of his own in Brisbane. A tall, thin, bewhiskered man who stammered, he was known all over Australia as a lecturer on weather and similar subjects. Australians of that time said that, as likely as not, when due to talk about big winds, he would arrive at the lecture hall with “too many sheets out” and fail to keep on his feet during the lecture. Though his name was Clement, he was better known in Australia as “Inclement.”
Storms which did not come from the tropics were called by men’s names. Generally, Wragge called them after politicians who had earned his disfavor, but for some reason he used girls’ names for the willy-willies. As an illustration for his weather journal called “WRAGGE,” he had a weather map for February 2, 1898, with a willy-willy named “Eline.” He predicted nasty weather from a disturbance named “Hackenbush.”
E. B. Buxton, a meteorologist for Pan American Airways, went to the South Pacific in the late thirties and, after hearing about Wragge and his names for willy-willies, adopted the idea for his charts. He recalled particularly using the name “Chloe” for hurricanes.