The cold inshore current must also be considered, because it is to great contrasts of temperature that the violence of storms is very largely due. East of Newfoundland the Labrador current flows southward, and during the spring and summer months carries gigantic icebergs and masses of field-ice into the tracks of transatlantic steamships. Upon meeting the Gulf Stream, a portion of this cold current underruns it, and continues on its course at the bottom of the sea; another portion is deflected to the southwest, and flows, counter to the Gulf Stream, along the coast as far south as Hatteras.
The broad features of these great ocean currents have thus been briefly outlined, and, although they are subject to considerable variation as to temperature, velocity, and limits, in response to the varying forces that act upon them, this general view must suffice for the present purpose.
Now to consider for a moment some of the phenomena resulting from the presence and relative positions of these ocean currents, so far as such phenomena bear upon the great storm now under consideration. With the Pilot Chart of the North Atlantic Ocean for March there was issued a Supplement descriptive of water-spouts off the Atlantic coast of the United States during January and February. Additional interest and importance have been given to the facts, there grouped together and published, by their evident bearing upon the conditions that gave rise to the tremendous increase of violence attendant upon the approach of this trough of low barometer toward the coast. In it were given descriptions, in greater or less detail, of as many as forty water-spouts reported by masters of vessels during these two months, at various positions off the coast, from the northern coast of Cuba to the Grand banks; and since that Supplement was published many other similar reports have been received. Moreover, it was pointed out that the conditions that gave rise to such remarkable and dangerous phenomena are due to the interaction between the warm moist air overhanging the Gulf stream and the cold dry air brought over it by northwesterly winds from the coast, and from over the cold inshore current, and the greater the differences of temperature and moisture, the greater the resulting energy of action. Reports were also quoted showing that the Gulf Stream was beginning to re-assert itself after a period of comparative quiescence during the winter months, and with increasing strength and volume was approaching its northern limits, as the sun moved north in declination.
Such, then, were the meteorological conditions off the coast, awaiting the attack of the advance guard of this long line of cold northwesterly gales,—conditions still further intensified by the freshening gale that sprung up from the southeast at its approach, drawing re-enforcements of warm, moist ocean air from far down within the tropics. The energy developed when storm systems of only ordinary character and severity reach the Atlantic on their eastward march toward northern Europe is well-known, and need not be referred to further: let us now return to the consideration of this storm which is advancing toward the coast at the rate of about 600 miles a day, in the form of a great arched squall whose front is more than a thousand miles in length, and which is followed, far down the line, by northwesterly gales and temperatures below the freezing point.
THE NIGHT OF THE 11TH–12TH.
Sunday afternoon, at 3 o'clock, the line of the storm center, or trough, extended in a curved line, convex to the east, from Lake Ontario down through New York State and Pennsylvania, along about the middle of Chesapeake Bay to Norfolk, across North Carolina to Point Lookout, and thence down through eastern Florida to Key West. Northeasterly, easterly, and southeasterly gales were therefore felt all along the coast from the Gulf of St. Lawrence to the Florida Keys, except in the bight between Lookout and Cañaveral, where the barometer had already reached and passed its lowest point and the wind was northwest, with much cooler weather. Reference to the [Barometer Diagram] shows pretty clearly that the trough passed Norfolk a short time before it reached Hatteras, where the lowest reading was undoubtedly lower, the evening of the 11th, than it was at Norfolk.
By 10 P.M. the line has advanced as far east as the 74th meridian. Telegraphic reports are soon all in from signal stations along the coast. The barometer is rising at Hatteras and Norfolk and still falling at Atlantic City, New York, and Block Island, but there is little or no indication of the fury of the storm off shore along the 74th meridian, from the 30th to the 40th parallel, where the cold northwesterly gale is sweeping over the great warm ocean current, carrying air at a temperature below the freezing point over water above 75° Fahrenheit, and where the barometer is falling more and more rapidly, the gale becoming a storm, and the storm a hurricane. Nor are there any indications that the area of high barometer about Newfoundland is slowing down, blocking the advance of the rapidly increasing storm, and about to hold the center of the line in check to the westward of Nantucket for days, which seem like weeks, while a terrific northwest gale plays havoc along the coast from Montauk Point to Hatteras, and until the right flank of the line has swung around to the eastward far enough to cut off the supply of warm moist air pouring in from the southeast. Long before midnight the welcome "good night" message has flashed along the wires to all the signal stations from the Atlantic to the Pacific slope, whilst at sea, aboard scores of vessels, from the little fishing-schooner and pilot-boat to the great transatlantic liner, a life-or-death struggle with the elements is being waged, with heroism none the less real because it is in self-defence, and none the less admirable because it cannot always avert disaster.
The accompanying [Track Chart] gives the tracks of as many vessels as can be shown without confusion, and illustrates very clearly where data for this discussion are most complete, as well as where additional information is specially needed. Thus it is here plainly evident that vessels are always most numerous to the eastward of New York (along the transatlantic route), and to the southward, off the coast. To the southeastward, however, about the Bermudas, there is a large area from which comparatively few reports have been received, although additional data will doubtless be obtained from outward-bound sailing vessels, upon their return. Of all the days in the week, Saturday, in particular, is the day on which the greatest number of vessels sail from New York. The 10th of March, for instance, as many as eight transatlantic liners got under way. Out in mid-ocean there were plowing their way toward our coast, to encounter the storm west of the 50th meridian, one steamship bound for Halifax, five for Boston, nineteen for New York, one for Philadelphia, one for Baltimore, and two for New Orleans. Northward bound, off the coast, were six more, not to mention here the many sailing vessels engaged in the coasting or foreign trade, whose sails whiten the waters of our coasts.
Of all the steamships that sailed from New York on the 10th, those bound south, with hardly a single exception, encountered the storm in all its fury, off the coast. Eastward-bound vessels escaped its greatest violence, although all met with strong head winds and heavy seas, and, had the storm not delayed between Block Island and Nantucket on the 12th and 13th, would have been overtaken by it off the Grand banks. Without quoting in detail the reports received, let us see what they indicate regarding the general character of the storm during the night, preparatory to our consideration of the weather chart for 7 A.M. March 12th. To do so, be it remembered, is a very different task from that which is involved in the study and comparison of observations taken with standard instruments at fixed stations ashore. Here our stations are constantly changing their positions; different observers read the instruments at different hours; the instruments themselves vary greatly in quality, and while some of them may have been compared with standards very recently, there are others whose errors are only approximately known. Moreover, when a vessel is pitching and rolling in a storm at sea, in imminent danger of foundering, it is, of course, impossible to set the vernier of the barometer scale and read off the height of the mercury with very great precision. It will thus be readily understood that the many hundreds of observations carefully taken and recorded for the Hydrographic Office by masters of vessels are necessarily more or less discordant, although the results obtained rest on the averages of so many reports that the probable error is always very small. An exhaustive study of reports from vessels at various positions along the coast, from the Straits of Florida to Sandy Hook, together with the records of the coast stations of the U. S. Signal Service, indicates a continuous eastward movement of the trough of low barometer during the night, accompanied by a rapid deepening of the depression. All along the coast we have the same sequence of phenomena, in greater or less intensity, according to the latitude of the vessel, as we noticed here in Washington that Sunday afternoon, when the warm southeasterly wind, with rain, died out, and after a short pause a cold northwesterly gale swept through the city, piling up the snow in heavy drifts, with trains belated or blockaded, and telegraphic communication cut off almost entirely with the outer world. It was a wild, stormy night ashore, but it was ten-fold more so off the coast, where the lights at Hatteras, Currituck, Assateague, Barnegat, and Sandy Hook mark the outline of one of the most dangerous coasts the navigator has to guard against. To bring the scene vividly before the mind would require far more time than I have at my disposal, and I can only regret that I cannot quote a few reports to give some idea of the violence of the storm.
By means of a careful comparison of many reports, it is evident that although the general trough-like form of the storm remained, yet another secondary storm center, and one of very great energy, formed off shore, north of Hatteras, as soon as the line had passed the coast. It was this center, fully equal to a tropical hurricane in violence, and rendered still more dangerous by freezing weather and blinding snow, which raged with such fury off Sandy Hook and Block Island for two days,—days likely to be long memorable along the coast. Its long continuance was probably due to the retardation of the center of the line, in its eastward motion, by the area of high barometer about Newfoundland; thus this storm center delayed between Block Island and Nantucket while the northern and southern flanks of the line swung around to the eastward, the advance of the lower one gradually cutting off the supply of warm moist air rushing up from lower latitudes into contact with the cold northwesterly gale sweeping down from off the coast between Hatteras and Montauk point. So far as the ocean is concerned, the 12th of March saw the great storm at its maximum, and its wide extent and terrific violence make it one of the most severe ever experienced off our coast.