Great Colonial Hurricane

NEW YORK

The winds whipped up to 130 mph, snapping pine trees like pick-up sticks and blowing houses into oblivion. A surge of water, 21 feet high at its crest, engulfing victims as they desperately scurried for higher ground. The merciless storm, pounding the coast for hours with torrential sheets of rain, was like nothing ever seen. One observer predicted the damage would linger for decades.

This wasn’t New Orleans in August 2005. This was New England in August 1635, battered by what was later dubbed The Great Colonial Hurricane — the first major storm suffered by the first North American settlers, just 14 years after the initial Thanksgiving celebration in Plymouth Colony.

The Puritans, after landing at Plymouth Rock, endured disease, brutal winters and battles with the natives. But their biggest test roared up the coast from the south, an unprecedented and terrifying tempest that convinced rattled residents the apocalypse was imminent.

And why not? The transplanted Europeans knew almost nothing of hurricanes, an entirely foreign phenomenon. Their fears of approaching death were reinforced when a lunar eclipse followed the natural disaster.

Once the weather cleared and the sun rose again, the few thousand residents of Plymouth and Massachusetts Bay colonies were left to rebuild and recover from a hurricane as powerful as 1938’s killer Long Island Express. The 20th-century hurricane killed 700 persons, including 600 in New England, and left 63,000 homeless.

“The settlers easily could have packed up and gone home,” said Nicholas K. Coch, a professor of geology at Queens College and one of the nation’s foremost hurricane experts. “It was an extraordinary event, a major hurricane, and nearly knocked out British culture in America.”

Last year, Mr. Coch used information that he collected from detailed Colonial journals to reconstruct the great hurricane. The 371-year-old data was brought to Brian Jarvinen at the National Hurricane Center, where it was interpreted using the SLOSH (Sea, Lake and Overland Surges from Hurricanes) computer model.

The result: The hurricane likely tracked farther west than was thought, passing over uninhabited easternmost Long Island before moving north into New England. Once clear of the colonies, it veered off into the Atlantic.

Previously, researchers had believed the hurricane missed Long Island — which always annoyed Mr. Coch.

“We started out doing this as a lark, and it turned out to be a very interesting piece of science,” said Mr. Coch. “This information can be applied to any hurricane in the north. I think that’s neat.”

Mr. Coch said the pioneers from across the Atlantic likely endured a Category 3 hurricane, moving faster than 30 mph, with maximum winds of 130 mph and a very high storm surge — 21 feet at Buzzards Bay and 14 feet at Providence. Reports at the time said 17 American Indians were drowned, while others scaled trees to find refuge.

The storm was moving about three times as fast as the typical southern hurricane, and arrived in full bluster. Although it struck nearly four centuries ago, very specific details about the first recorded hurricane in North America were provided by the local leaders’ writings.

“The documentation was better than any hurricane until the mid-1800s,” said Mr. Coch. “That’s a story in itself.”

John Winthrop, head of the Massachusetts Bay group, recalled in his Aug. 16, 1635, entry that the winds were kicking up a full week before the hurricane.

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