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- [00:02]
Emily Gracie
It's October 1991. Along the east coast, folks are enjoying the fall weather and getting ready for Halloween festivities. Offshore, Hurricane Grace churns in the Atlantic, but poses no land falling threat. Then an extra tropical low develops off the coast of New England. Absorbing moisture from Grace, it rapidly intensifies, transforms into a massive cyclone on a collision course with the Eastern Seaboard.
- [00:31]
Joe Sinkiewicz
Now, earlier in the day, it was easier to see how strong the winds were. Swells were whipped up so high that at one point, this Coast Guard cutter virtually vanished from sight. There were also reports of some spot flooding and some roads did have to be closed due to the high winds, which in some cases reached upwards of 55 miles an hour.
- [00:52]
Emily Gracie
The devastating winds and waves leave widespread destruction from Canada down to the Caribbean.
- [01:00]
Joe Sinkiewicz
Overnight, the elements have recarved Chatham's face, slicing streets and hacking homes. All through south county, the story is the same. Beach erosion and flooding are worse than in Hurricane Bob. Fishing boats were slammed into rocks. Others were helplessly beached. All of them are trapped. So much sand was kicked up, the entire channel must be navigated again.
- [01:23]
Emily Gracie
In the aftermath, a book titled the Perfect Storm would chronicle this meteorological phenomenon. Later, a blockbuster movie by the same name would bring the story to the big screen. But what exactly led to the development of this monster storm?
- [01:40]
Joe Sinkiewicz
You know, because of the evolution that things had to come together in a certain way in order for this massive storm to develop.
- [01:47]
Emily Gracie
Today we are going off the radar to find out. I'll speak with meteorologist Joe Sienkiewicz who is working at the National Weather Service during the storm, that the wind field.
- [01:58]
Joe Sinkiewicz
From the storm was massive.
- [02:00]
Emily Gracie
We'll dig into the accuracy of the book and the movie.
- [02:04]
Joe Sinkiewicz
They were in an area where things degraded very, very, very quickly. He used the word perfect and that's where it came from and it stuck.
- [02:13]
Emily Gracie
And the evolution of marine forecasting over the past three decades. I'm meteorologist Emily Gracey and you're listening to off the Radar, a production of the National Weather Desk. On the show, we dig deep into topics about weather, climate, the oceans, space and much more. Our goal is to help you better understand the weather and to love it as much as we do. Hey, prime members, have you heard?
- [02:41]
Emily Santam
You can listen to your favorite podcasts ad free.
- [02:43]
Emily Gracie
Good news with Amazon Music, you have access to the largest catalog of ad free top podcasts included with your prime membership. To start listening, download the Amazon music app for free or go to Amazon.com adfreepodcast that's Amazon.com adfreepodcast to catch up on the latest episodes without the ads.
- [03:03]
Emily Santam
Why get all your holiday decorations delivered through Instacart? Because maybe you only bought two wreaths but have 12 windows. Or maybe your toddler got very eager with the Advent calendar. Or maybe the inflatable snowman didn't make it through the snowstorm. Or maybe the twinkle lights aren't twinkling. Whatever the reason, this season, Instacart's here for hosts and their whole holiday haul. Get decorations from the Home Depot, CVS and more through Instacart and enjoy free delivery on your first three orders. Service fees and terms apply.
- [03:35]
Brian Petrus
Emily Santom, welcome to off the Radar. I'm so happy to have you on today to talk about this very interesting storm because I know you love historic storms as much as I do, right?
- [03:44]
Emily Santam
Yes, I love the historical storms. My favorite is the great New England Hurricane, 1938. I feel like I'm a pro on that one. But just all of historical storms, which.
- [03:53]
Brian Petrus
Is so cute and nerdy because like, I'm sure so many people do not even know what that storm is. I grew up in New England and I do not know what that storm is. So kudos to you for knowing your history. Okay, so a little background on you. You are the dayside meteorologist at our station in Portland, Maine.
- [04:12]
Emily Gracie
Yes.
- [04:12]
Brian Petrus
And that's CBS and Fox affiliate, right?
- [04:14]
Emily Santam
Yes. CBS 13 and Fox 23.
- [04:16]
Brian Petrus
You are all over social media. I love your TikToks. They're so much fun and they're really informative too. So people, if you don't follow Emily Santa on TikTok, you absolutely should. Okay, so you, you're relatively new to the business though, right? Can you tell me about yourself? Where did you grow up? Where did you go to college?
- [04:32]
Emily Santam
So I grew up in southern New Hampshire. I also went to college at Palma State University. I just graduated in 2023. So this is about, I think I'm approaching my year and a half next month in the broadcast industry.
- [04:45]
Brian Petrus
I'm guessing that you then were not born yet when this event, the Perfect Storm, happened?
- [04:51]
Emily Santam
No, I was not.
- [04:52]
Joe Sinkiewicz
No.
- [04:53]
Brian Petrus
Were you even born when the movie came out?
- [04:55]
Emily Santam
Even in 2000? I think I was born in 2001.
- [04:59]
Brian Petrus
Oh my goodness.
- [05:00]
Emily Gracie
Wow.
- [05:00]
Brian Petrus
Okay, so this is all like old timey stuff to you. So I'm curious then, if you weren't alive yet, what did you know, like growing up about the Perfect Storm or did you know about it at all?
- [05:11]
Emily Santam
I mean, my dad is from Massachusetts, so I kind of knew briefly about it.
- [05:15]
Joe Sinkiewicz
I don't know.
- [05:16]
Emily Santam
I didn't really hear about it. I've only ever heard about the iconic ship Andrea Yale. That's all I ever heard about. But I never heard about the meteorology aspect until I probably hit college.
- [05:27]
Brian Petrus
Right.
- [05:28]
Emily Gracie
And same.
- [05:29]
Brian Petrus
I grew up in New England. I was alive during both of these things. Um, but until the movie came out, I feel like that really put the spotlight on this storm. And then after talking to Joe Sinkiewicz, who is the person that I'm talking to today on the podcast, and I know you've talked to him as well, I learned so much more about just like how interesting meteorologically this storm actually is.
- [05:50]
Emily Santam
I kind of was a little confused about the storm at first when I first learned about it. I guess the meteorological background of it, I was just a little. I just had to wrap my head around how it was very surreal and insane how these three weather conditions all happened at the exact same time. Okay, the perfect storm. But I don't think I really put it in perspective on how horrific the event was until I spoke with Joe. I just, you know, I looked at the background of it. I looked at pictures. I've seen some videos. You actually sent me a great video of it, too. I think that when I spoke with Joe, he really. Because I actually asked him a question about what surprised him the most with the, you know, the forecasting. He forecasted it from start to finish, the impacts. And he said the waves really shocked him a lot. Just how big they were in the. The wind field of the storm. I just didn't realize how impactful the waves were. I know living. I do live in Portland, Maine, so we've seen a lot of our fair share of coastal storms, but just the extent of how powerful waves and water or. It just. It was pretty crazy to hear him talk about and get so serious about it too.
- [07:00]
Brian Petrus
Yeah, it's interesting. He's, I would say, still emotional about it all these years later, just how impactful it was and how scary it was, because, you know, we watched the movie and it's great and it's fun. And I guess I always thought the movie was overdone, but from talking to him, that may not be the case. It may have actually been quite well done. So we're gonna do a lot of comparison between real life and the movie and how it was represented. And he really points out a lot of the specifics of how it's different and how it's the same. So it's going to be really interesting. So Joe Sinkwitz, a little background on him. He's the chief of the Ocean Application Branch for the NOAA Ocean Prediction center. And he was actually a forecaster on the storm back in 1991. So he remembers being on shift. The evolution of the storm, what was surprising, what was hard, what was predicted, takes us through the whole timeline. So really interesting stuff. Emily, you have a story coming out this week about it that we're going to look for from you guys as well. Really excited to see how that all turns out. Is there anything else you want to share with us? Any anything new happening in Maine coming out that we should keep an eye out for?
- [08:04]
Emily Santam
Charlo Presto, chief meteorologist. His Winter Outlook special is coming out on Wednesday.
- [08:09]
Brian Petrus
Charlie is going to be the subject of an upcoming off the radar podcast as well. We're going to talk about his time as a Mount Washington Observer. So that's an episode to keep an eye out for.
- [08:18]
Emily Santam
Yes, he talks highly of that. So I'm excited to listen to that one.
- [08:21]
Brian Petrus
Awesome. Well, Emily Santom, thank so much for coming on today. Best of luck to you.
- [08:26]
Emily Santam
Thank you.
- [08:31]
Emily Gracie
Some call it the perfect storm, some call it the Halloween Storm of 1991. I'm very curious on your take on that a little bit, but tell me a little bit about what you were doing in 1991.
- [08:43]
Joe Sinkiewicz
I worked at the National Meteorological center, which no longer that name doesn't exist within the weather service and at MC was in Camp Springs, Maryland, just just across the Beltway from Andrews Air Force Base. And as part of the weather service modernization functions were that had been out in the field offices were actually brought in that didn't quite fit the modernization. So and one of them, and it was an opportunity is a weather service Consolidated Marine High Seas Marine Weather Forecasting and warnings under nmc. So I was part of, part of sort of the group that was brought in in order to do high seas forecasting in warnings.
- [09:29]
Emily Gracie
Your accent is telling me that you're local to the New England area though.
- [09:34]
Joe Sinkiewicz
I'm a Bostonian. Yeah. I grew up in Dorchester.
- [09:37]
Brian Petrus
It's so hard to tell.
- [09:39]
Joe Sinkiewicz
Yeah, I might slip a north in once in a while, so.
- [09:43]
Brian Petrus
Nice. All right.
- [09:45]
Emily Gracie
So you were actively forecasting this storm at the time then?
- [09:49]
Joe Sinkiewicz
So I was on the forecast desk and we had at the time we had rotated eight hour shifts, three forecasters and my predecessor on Saturday night really was thinking forward looking at the evolution, you know, and think back to the day 1991, that the way we were doing things, everything was in paper. So we didn't have anywhere near the level of detail that we have now And I do remember during this event just having paper sort of like in my lap and you know. Yeah, it was just sort of just such a different era than it is now where everything is digital and on screens and you know we use mice instead of, you know, actually hand measuring distances with dividers. And we actually did some hand plotting of additional ship data. We go through a list and plot. So Saturday night Steve Pont was the forecaster. And Steve had a sense we had a challenge. And one of the challenges back in that day was for non tropical storms. What we call extratropical storms, meaning they're winter ocean storms like the perfect storm or the Halloween storm. We were limited in what warning criteria we could use. So even though we'd be forecasting hurricane force conditions, we either we either gale which is Beaufort 8934 to 47 knots and then storm and we basically 48 knots and greater is what storm was based on the international rules at the time. So started on Sunday. And each day it's sort of okay, it's, it's not changing that it, it is going to be a really significant rapid development just south of Nova Scotia. And the pattern, the overall large scale pattern and this is typical that can happen in October. In fact, late October is a very stormy time that the pattern overall or the steering currents can amplify. So rather than having say a westerly jet and all storm systems just moving from west to east when it's amplified. Storm systems when they develop, they tend to either move from south to north or north to south or in some cases, and this is true for the Perfect storm that the pattern became such that a ridge built over a what we call a digging short wave that amplified south of Nova Scotia. Well that gave birth to if you read the the book or in the movie, that was the Sable island storm. I know there's kind of the distraction of the hurricane but man, the Sable island storm was impressive. Without the hurricane it still would have been a really a very intense rapid development with it was cold air coming off of Nova Scotia. You could see that in cloud streets in the satellite imagery. And it spun up very, very quickly because of where it was in relationship that the pattern had amplified so much that the upper low was to the southwest of the storm. So what did that do is it actually took the surface low and retrograded it. It moved westward towards the mid Atlantic and the New England coast.
- [13:13]
Emily Gracie
Is that something you saw coming or did that surprise you?
- [13:18]
Joe Sinkiewicz
It's surprised that it was there. Meaning there in that location. But being an ocean forecaster for a long time, it happens for that intense to do that is what was unusual. And the fact that the wind field was so large.
- [13:33]
Emily Gracie
Yeah. Okay, so then tell me about the role that like Hurricane Grace and then the other storm played in this as well.
- [13:41]
Joe Sinkiewicz
So Grace existed before the perfect storm, the Sable island storm developed. Grace was moving to the northeast. And as the Sable island storm intensified and a cold air pushed southward, there was increasing southwesterly flow in advance of that front. So Grace accelerated to the northeast. It was an ingredient into the larger scale storm. And that's, I think, one of the elements why it's called one of the evolutions, why, you know the phrase was perfect storm.
- [14:16]
Emily Gracie
Right. It's funny though, listening to like you talk about this versus, you know, like a movie talking about it, because in the movie it's like, you know, it absorbed hurricane Grace and became the perfect storm. And you're like, well, it was an ingredient. There was moisture.
- [14:32]
Brian Petrus
It's a little less sexy, but that's all right.
- [14:35]
Joe Sinkiewicz
Yeah, I know. Well, I've, I've seen a lot of storms. I, like I said this, the Sable island storm, the intensification was really, really quite impressive, that the wind field from the storm was massive. So it was a complex evolution. So, and it makes sense meteorologically, but it was amazing to watch how it evolved. The storm basically, or the atmosphere delivered cold air over the whole western Atlantic. You know, very strong cold front. The storm itself, it actually ends up being a low level pool of warmer air, not necessarily warm air, but it's, it's called a seclusion. So we, we all talk about occlusions, but actually occlusion leads to seclusion. So you have a warm, shallow area with cold air aloft because you, you just delivered cold air. So it, it, that's primed for developing convection. So that's what happened as the storm was say off of New Jersey, starting to move south. Relatively deep convection, it wasn't particularly shallow, formed around the center of the circulation. So it actually, and I think it was on Thursday, it actually developed an eye. So basically it actually became a hurricane. So you had a storm that was this large, developed a hurricane in its center that was relatively small, but it was actually measured by an air Force Hurricane Hunter at 80 knots of wind.
- [16:09]
Emily Gracie
So today this would have been named, do you think?
- [16:12]
Joe Sinkiewicz
Yes. And it, it actually, if you go back in the records, you will see the track is there that it is in. It is listed as an unnamed Storm for 1991. And it would have been Henri I do remember that at the time there was a conscious decision between the director of the meteorological operations division at the time, Louis Uccellini, and Bob Sheets at the hurricane center that because of what this storm had done to the coast that we'd. Because the wave action and all, and we'll get to that, the damages and all because of that, it made. It was only meteorological sense in order to name, to name the storm, that there was no need, warnings were up, that we didn't need to add a level of confusion. And I think it was a good decision at the time, a good communications decision. But turn around and it is in the database as an unnamed storm in 91.
- [17:03]
Emily Gracie
Okay, so did it make landfall?
- [17:05]
Joe Sinkiewicz
So it did make landfall. It would have been in Nova Scotia. And I don't think at that time there was much in the way of it because it had weakened relatively quickly.
- [17:15]
Emily Gracie
So along the east coast, who kind of got the worst of it?
- [17:18]
Joe Sinkiewicz
Actually it was more than the east coast. So it was from Maine to Puerto Rico to the Northern Islands, Dominican Republic, 80 Bahamas, Florida, all the way to Maine. Wave generation is complex in a way. And I wanted. This was a special thing about the storm was that, okay, so the storm moved westward because it was caught in the circulation of the upper low. The easterly winds to the north on the north side of the storm were very, very intense. So in that area that moved westward, but it moved westward at a speed where wave generation was optimized, I guess.
- [18:04]
Emily Gracie
I'm curious why there were fishing boats out or was there just one fishing boat out? And that's, that's the one we hear about. What were, what was the warning system like?
- [18:13]
Joe Sinkiewicz
So the warnings at the time are text bulletins that were transmitted by high frequency radio waves by Canada's Coast Guard, also with the US Coast Guard broadcast, it only went out to 36 hours. So you would have had a day and a half of warning graphics. Now go four to five days and numerical model data goes out. Our own global forecast system, GFS goes out 15 days and then we have extended versions of that. Things have really changed. It's just a different world.
- [18:46]
Emily Gracie
I'm guessing some of the fishing excursions were quite long. Correct. Like, yes, you're leaving days before potential.
- [18:54]
Joe Sinkiewicz
Warnings if the vessel that was lost was a sword fisherman. And they basically would be out for quite a long period of time.
- [19:01]
Emily Gracie
Okay, so let's talk about. You work the storm, you get through it, and then years later this book comes out and eventually a movie. I'm curious as somebody who Lived this and saw every aspect of the storm. What you thought about the book?
- [19:18]
Joe Sinkiewicz
I think, I think the book did a good job. Did it? Did he? For a layman and probably better to be a layman to be writing the book. I mean he's an author, but I think he did a good job. I mean there was some language in there that wasn't quite right. I remember there was something about the LFM balloons being lifted, being raised. We launch, we still do it. Radio songs every 12 hours. And he was referring to the radio sound launches took a little bit of liberty and the LFM was our short term model that we had at a really coarse resolution. But actually I think he did a good job in some ways because he took the context and had that and built the story around that. So I think he did a fairly good job. The phrase perfect storm is actually from. Was the deputy at the Boston forecast office, Bob Case. You know, because of the evolution that things had to come together in a certain way in order for this massive storm to develop. He used the word perfect and that's where, where it came from and it stuck. Does do it justice. We tend to call it the Halloween storm because its impact was, was Halloween, but it already had been evolving for a couple of days.
- [20:32]
Emily Gracie
Well, it's interesting too the book. I, it's. When you, I thought you were going this direction, when you started it, when you said, you know, it wasn't just about the storm and the evolution of the storm, but I was thinking also about the people involved in it and the people impacted by it and that, you know, the book really stuck to kind of the story of the people impacted by it and the people that were living and working in this area at the time too, which I, you know, I thought they did a good job of, of showing that because not everybody understands that lifestyle, the, the fishing lifestyle.
- [20:59]
Joe Sinkiewicz
Yeah, I, I agree. And that's, I mean really, that's, that's the core of the story is these, these, you know, Andrea Gail. I have looked at buoy data and all from, you know, to keep kind of my own mind as to how, you know, with the evolution of things and how was a Canadian. One of the Canadian nomad movies was 44137, if I remember right, was in the relative vicinity of Andrea Gail. They were in an area where things degraded very, very, very quickly in part because, well, the evolution of the storm was an explosive development. Then also the wave generation that I.
- [21:36]
Emily Gracie
Mentioned from looking at the buoy data. What did you get from that? What did that tell you, did it tell you wave heights, what kind of any sort of wind information of what was going on near the Andrea gale at that time.
- [21:49]
Joe Sinkiewicz
If I remember right, winds were strong storm to near hurricane force. Seas increased very, very quickly. I mean seas went from like nine feet to what we call this is significant wave height which is the average one third of the highest waves. If I remember right, I think they got up to about 57ft. That's the significant wave height. But the Canadian buoys back in that day, even then they still do measure maximum wave. So it was 99ft. So that's an isolated single wave. But think of it, it doesn't. So you're thinking height but what you're not thinking is what does that really look like? What's the face of it? Like how sharp is it? You know, is it breaking? You know, curling down? You know, how does. That's the destructive power basically is the waves and those are the conditions that they were in.
- [22:40]
Emily Gracie
You know, people definitely had their kind of critiques about the movie and that one scene where there's this massive wave just kind of overtaking the boat. But it doesn't sound like it's that far fetched.
- [22:52]
Joe Sinkiewicz
I think they made the wave look sort of laminar, you know, kind of smooth. But I think, I mean a lot of times you'll see that just one sea just heaps up and is breaking down. So whether or not instead of what they call well pitch, it's pitch polling. You can go this way or you can go this way. You can actually do like a back pitch pole. I think more typically would have been just a forced roll. I think the wave looked a little bit, not as extreme but just not as smooth that my guess, you know, just a large breaking wave in a horrific sea. I think another thing that people don't depreciate and they don't have to is what the wind does. When you have 50, 60, 65, 70 knots of wind, the ocean surface is being shredded. So and this is Sebastian did a terrific job in this. When you get up into hurricane force conditions, minimal hurricane force and higher, there's basically, it's a mix of spray foam. Basically the ocean surface, it's violent is being, is being shredded and talks about the lower part of the atmosphere becomes an emulsion. And in other words it's, it's, it's a combination of everything. It's just not air. So. And I thought he did a really good job that way because when you, when you fly in an aircraft and See what the ocean looks like. It really is an emulsion. It's almost like the boundary layer sort of thickens because it's not quite this and it's not, it's not quite air and it's not quite ocean, but it's a mix of both. And I thought that was, to the layman, I thought that was a fantastic description.
- [24:29]
Emily Gracie
Do you know if he consulted with the meteorologists that were involved in the forecasting of the storm at all?
- [24:34]
Joe Sinkiewicz
Yeah, he talked to the Boston forecast office. So Bob Case and others, Walt Dragg others, and I'm sure he talked with them. The other part, and this was he talked about the effects of drowning then. I thought that was extremely sobering. So, yeah, I found a hard time reading that because I was a merchant mariner and I've known people, had colleagues that passed away with losses. And I've kind of carried that always with me in my career that there is a reality to this, something we've changed over the time. So you asked were there fishing vessels out there? I mean, we have the evidence that, you know, losses and all, but nowadays actually we can see where vessels are relative to active weather.
- [25:29]
Emily Gracie
To what level, like how small of a vessel could you see?
- [25:33]
Joe Sinkiewicz
It depends on the equipment that they have. We can see ships and some from fishing boats. It's a different world than it was in 19. That's the point I'm trying to make in many, many different ways. It's a different world. Yeah.
- [25:45]
Emily Gracie
Obviously forecasting has changed a lot. So as far as the ship, do you think Andrea Gale would have been rescued during the storm if it were.
- [25:52]
Joe Sinkiewicz
20, 23, if they were in that location? I don't know if that would be able to be done because the conditions are so severe. Would they have had potentially more advanced warning? There's much more available. But not only that, the predictability has been pushed out, you know, fairly far now, especially for a large scale storm like that. That, that it, you know, not 24, 36, 48 hours now is. Look at Lee. I mean, we, Lee was the evolution of that. It seemed like we lived that for two weeks.
- [26:29]
Emily Gracie
We did, didn't we?
- [26:31]
Joe Sinkiewicz
Yeah, we did.
- [26:33]
Emily Gracie
Okay, so 1991, you were clearly early on in your career at this point. Had you seen anything like this before at that point? And did you learn anything from it moving forward in your forecasting career?
- [26:48]
Joe Sinkiewicz
Yes. Okay, so good, good question. Had I seen anything like this beforehand? No, not of that scale. So that was an education. Another one was wave generation and relationship to wind and the motion of the storm of storms. Another one was and I think we all learned this is graphic. We need better graphics and the graphics have to be available.
- [27:11]
Emily Gracie
Any comparable storms to this storm since then?
- [27:16]
Joe Sinkiewicz
Sandy? Yeah, Sandy.
- [27:20]
Emily Gracie
Did that bring back a lot of memories to people in New England?
- [27:24]
Joe Sinkiewicz
Yeah, Sandy really the tropical form of Sandy became the center of a much, much larger storm. The Sandy made landfall actually stalled inland. There was snow inland and all, so it had a cold side to it. In fact, if you read the books about Bounty Coast Guard C130, they were using their de icing boots in Sandy in a rescue because it was a cold air mass and the scale of Sandy and wave action inundation and all.
- [28:00]
Emily Gracie
In the final report from the National Weather Service. They call this the Halloween nor'easter of 1991. 78 mile per hour winds were reported in Chatham, Massachusetts during the worst of the storm. Although New England was the closest to the storm, receiving the hardest blows, widespread destruction was the rule as far south as Cape Hatteras, North Carolina, with scattered damage occurring all the way to southern Florida and even into the north coast of Puerto Rico.
- [28:30]
Brian Petrus
Off the Radar is a production of the National Weather Desk. Make sure you're following the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts. New episodes publish every Tuesday. If you know someone that's interested in the Perfect Storm, please share this episode with them. We'd also love you to rate and review us on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Let us know what you think of the show. You can also give me ideas for future episodes. Special thanks to Joe Sinkowitz for his expertise on this historic weather event. Also thanks to Emily Santam and Brian Petrus. I'm meteorologist Emily Gracie. Make it a great day.