The Gales of November
"When the witch of November comes stealing..."
Fall has taken its sweet time arriving to much of the country. Warm weather dominated in September and October, and it is only recently that the first widespread freezes, deep chills, and even snowflakes have started to creep into the northern parts of the country, with a big snow dump in Colorado and New Mexico. As recently as the week of (and after) Halloween, record warm temperatures and swaths of severe thunderstorms still painted parts of the country.
And yet, inevitably, the cooler temperatures are coming. The big cold fronts that push cooler air south are sweeping across the country. The winds are kicking up, tossing a blizzard of leaves off the trees. Fall weather systems can bring a confusion of weather, pushing warm air and even thunderstorms ahead, while pulling cold air and snow down behind. As they pass, they often kick up gusty winds, sometimes the strongest of the season.
In at least the northern half and mountainous parts of the U.S., November is a time for temperature changes, precipitation changes, weather changes. It’s a time of winds and storms, a reminder to get ready to hunker down. And it can be a time for the Gales of November, the storms that kick up large waves on the Great Lakes.
The Ingalls and Wilder families were no strangers to the gales of November. Caroline (Ma) Ingalls’s own father, Henry Quiner, died aboard a ship during a November gale. The schooner Ocean, hauling lumber, capsized between Chicago, Illinois, and St. Joseph, Michigan, in November 1845. As reported in the Milwaukee Sentinel on Tuesday, November 11, the vessel was discovered on Friday, November 7, and likely capsized during a gale on Thursday, November 6. All crew members died.
The witches of November have come stealing many times through the decades of shipping on the Great Lakes.
What Is a Gale?
By definition, a gale-force wind is one with speeds of 39-54 mph (34-47 kt). The National Weather Service issues gale and storm warnings for the Great Lakes and (ocean) coastal waters because ships are especially vulnerable to strong winds on the open seas (and large lakes), where waves pushed by the long fetches of wind across water can reach dangerous heights. Winds of 55-72 mph (48-63 kt) warrant a “storm warning” for the Great Lakes and coastal waters - not to be confused with a “tropical storm warning” (specific to tropical storms making landfall or impacting land and water areas) or a “severe thunderstorm warning” (specific to thunderstorms producing either hail of 1 inch in diameter or greater or thunderstorm winds of 58 mph or greater).
That said, the word “gale” is sometimes used casually to describe not just the wind speeds, but the whole of a storm system that brings strong winds to the Great Lakes or coastal waters. The “gales of November” have taken on legendary status because of their history of sinking ships, but is there a reason that November gales are worse or more feared than other months?
Strong weather systems become more common around the latitude of the Great Lakes from late fall through early spring as large low-pressure systems move across the northern U.S., pushed and strengthened by the jet stream. The upper-level winds also pick up strength in the cold season, fed by the increasing differences between cold to the north and warm to the south and the resulting pressure differences. Winds thrive on gradients, strengthening where the transitions are most abrupt, just like a river flows faster down steep terrain than on flat ground. In particular, the strongest storm systems in the Great Lakes do favor November.
Ships are not out on the Great Lakes during the winter, when the lakes are at least partially ice-covered, and they wait until after spring thaw to return. Fall is when ships are most likely to be at sea when the big storms arrive, most likely to be trying to do one last run before they are docked for winter.
The Legend Lives On: November 10, 1975
The sinking of the Edmund Fitzgerald in Lake Superior on November 10, 1975, might have fallen out of the public’s memory completely if it had not been captured and immortalized by Gordon Lightfoot in his epic folk song “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald.” As a school child in Michigan, we learned about the wreck as a part of our Michigan history curriculum, art meeting history as we also sang the Gordon Lightfoot in our fourth grade music program.
The Edmund Fitzgerald departed from Superior Harbor, Wisconsin, on November 9, carrying a heavy load of taconite (iron ore) pellets. Far from the only ship on Lake Superior, it was one of many trying to beat the storm across the lake. It followed a path along the north shore of Lake Superior, intending to stay in the lee of shore where winds and waves were less intense. As the Edmund Fitzgerald passed near Michipicoten Island on the northeast side of Lake Superior, its captain, Capt. Ernest McSorley, reported a list and topside damage, with the ship taking on water and running its pumps. He asked the captain of another nearby ship, the Arthur Anderson, to stay near it as it churned toward Whitefish Point and the shelter of Whitefish Bay, in the southeastern corner of Lake Superior. At 7:00 PM, the Edmund Fitzgerald checked in that they were “holding our own,” but by 7:20 PM, the ship had disappeared from radar just 17 miles short of Whitefish Point. The ship sank in the storm, taking all 29 crew members.
The National Weather Service had issued a gale warning for Lake Superior at about 2:39 PM on November 9, nearly coincident with the Edmund Fitzgerald’s departure, alerting ships to the potential for gale-force winds (not to mention freezing rain and icing). The storm intensified rapidly as it crossed the Great Lakes, with wind speeds exceeding the forecasts as its pressure dropped. The National Weather Service upgraded to a storm warning at 2:00 AM on November 10, reflecting the deeper intensity and higher wind speeds in the storm. Wind gusts reportedly reached as high as around 75 mph on the open waters.
Meteorologists have run weather and wave models to re-create the event so that they can study it. By their models, it is likely that waves of at least 25 ft swelled in eastern Lake Superior near Whitefish Point, driven by winds of 52+ mph (or 45+ kt) in the model. The worst of the conditions were exactly in the location of the Edmund Fitzgerald as it approached Whitefish Point from the northwest.
While the cause of the Edmund Fitzgerald’s sinking is not definitively answered, investigators and researchers have speculated that it struck bottom as it passed near the shoals off Michipicoten Island. The impact could have breached the hull as well as torqued the ship enough that some of the topside hatch covers and deck railings popped off. Additionally, some of the hatch covers may not have been functioning properly before departure. With its heavy load and likely intrusion of water from both above and below the water line, the ship took on water faster than the pumps could manage, eventually either capsizing or upending into the steep waves.
The anniversary of the sinking of the Edmund Fitzgerald is still honored every year at the Great Lakes Shipwreck Museum at Whitefish Point with a ceremony, followed by the ringing of the Edmund Fitzgerald’s bell, recovered from the wreck in 1995 as a memorial to the crew who died aboard the ship. The bell rings 29 times, for each man on the Edmund Fitzgerald, just as the song says - and a 30th time for all those lost on the Lakes.
The “White Hurricane” of November 1913
While many years on the Great Lakes have seen a November gale, none has caused as many deaths as the “White Hurricane” of November 7-10, 1913. The four-day gale brought hurricane-force winds (gusting to around 90 mph) and incredible waves, along with blizzard-like snows and icing from freezing rain. Over a dozen major shipwrecks occurred in the storm, with an estimated 250 lives lost.
Forecasters in the era had hoisted flags on shore for a gale warning on November 7. Ships out at sea, out of sight of land, had no means to receive warnings that the storm would be more intense than the initial forecast. Forecasters of the era had far fewer tools than either the 1970s or today - no satellites, radar, or computer models to aid their forecasts. They had only the observations and their (limited) knowledge of storm movement and structure.
As with the 1975 storm, meteorologists have simulated the White Hurricane with weather and wave models to study it. The models generated waves up to at least 36 feet in southern and western Lake Huron during the peak of the storm on November 9, 1913. That evening, in a six-hour period, eight ships sank and 187 souls perished.
Though not as many lives were lost, the Mataafa storm on Lake Superior on November 27-28, 1905, killed 36 people and sunk or damaged 29 ships. Named for one of the fated ships, which gained attention via rescue efforts that saved some of the crew, it is another example of the shipping industry trying to get just one last run in before the season closed, this one during the week of Thanksgiving. The storm and its ships are memorialized in the excellent book So Terrible a Storm: A Tale of Fury on Lake Superior by Curt Brown (Voyageur Press, 2006).
Other examples of the Gales of November include the Armistice Day storm in 1940, with five ships and sixty-six souls lost, and the storm of November 1998, during which the improved modern forecasts may have been responsible for the lack of ship sinkings and fatalities.
Though I suspect just about everyone reading this newsletter is not a sailor at sea in the Great Lakes, it serves as a reminder to all of us about the power of the November storms, our vulnerability to them in history, and the importance of heeding the excellent forecasts and warnings available in our modern weather era.
Beware the gales of November.
For further reading, I recommend:
Adult nonfiction: There are probably a bunch of good books, but the one I read and have on my shelf is by Frederick Stonehouse, The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald, Avery Color Studios (first published in 1977, reprinted several times - including the 1991 edition on my shelf, and republished in 2006 as a 40th anniversary edition).
Children’s book: Kathy-Jo Wargin (author) and Gijsbert “Nick” van Frankenhuyzen (illustrator), Edmund Fitzgerald: Song of the Bell, Sleeping Bear Press (2014)
Scientific article: Thomas R. Hultquist and coauthors (2006), “Reexamination of the 9–10 November 1975 “Edmund Fitzgerald” Storm Using Today’s Technology,” Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society vol 87 no 5. (Note: This article is in a publication intended to convey meteorology to other meteorologists and is highly technical.)
This Month in Wilder Weather History
November 6, 1845: Henry Quiner, father of Caroline (Quiner) Ingalls, dies when the schooner Ocean capsizes in Lake Michigan. According to a brief note in the Milwaukee Sentinel on Tuesday, November 11, the vessel likely capsized on “Thursday last” (November 6) during a “gale,” with all hands lost, and was found on “Friday last” (November 7).
Great post as usual, and bonus for me — recommendation for my partner who loves shipwreck stories and needs his next book!
I always thought of those shipwrecks as 19th century happenings as a child so the realization that the Edmund Fitzgerald happened two years before I was born was stunning - this could still happen.
As I sit here within 15 miles of the St Joseph lighthouse, I would love to find out more about the Ocean.