Katrina-size hurricanes used to hit New England; could it happen again?

cBS News ^ | 2/11/15 | Michael Casey

[AT7Saluki]

New Englanders are no stranger to hurricanes, enduring the likes of Bob in 1991 and Donna in 1954, which packed winds over 100 miles per hour and caused hundred of millions of dollars in damage.

But that was kids' play compared to the storms that hit the region centuries ago.

Using sediment deposits from a Cape Cod pond, scientists said Wednesday that hurricanes more powerful than any on record in modern times swamped New England between the years 250 to 1150 A.D. And they were pretty frequent, with 23 hurricanes recorded - one for every 40 years - from what was the peak of the Roman Empire to the height of the Middle Ages.

[AT7Saluki]

Money quote:
The storms were fueled in part by warmer sea surface temperatures in the Atlantic Ocean, according to the study. Temperatures soon fell back but in recent decades have slowly inched upwards due to climate change ...
So why is it climate change this time exactly? The lengths to which these shills will go.

[Crazieman]

It wasn’t climate change then, but it is now.

[DBrow]

Yet we have much fewer hurricanes than before “global warming”. Maybe the sea is not getting as warm as Algor thinks?

[baltimorepoet]

New England is a mostly progressive-infested swamp. It would be most appropriate if God destroyed it by hurricanes.

[cripplecreek]

Stupid question.

Of course they could happen again if the conditions are right.

[rfreedom4u]

If it happened before it can happen again.

Why doesn’t one ever hit San Fransicko?

[ConservativeInPA]

American Indians need to be held responsible. I want reparations and I want them now! Those darn redskins built fires and emitted too much carbon into the air. They have to pay. Let’s take some of that casino money and give it to deserving people and fund scientific research for alternative energy. We need to suck those casinos dry for the harm they did to the earth and the children.

[ConservativeInPA]

Oh, sorry. I was spending too much time over at DU. Please forgive me.

[gr8eman]

There’s a lot of trash to be taken out up there. I don’t know if a hurricane could clean it all out!

[BykrBayb]

could it happen again?

You forgot to say "please."

[daniel1212]

The storms were fueled in part by warmer sea surface temperatures in the Atlantic Ocean, according to the study. Temperatures

It wasn’t climate change then, but it is now.

Exactly. It was caused by anticipation of anthropogenic GW.

[2nd Amendment]

I want the biggest, coldest weather ever recorded on earth to hit a global warming conference and freeze the daylights out of a bunch of Al Gore gaia clones!

[daniel1212]

New England is a mostly progressive-infested swamp. It would be most appropriate if God destroyed it by hurricanes.

As part of the frozen chosen here, I must agree, but much of the country is not far behind, or surpasses it. Meanwhile, we are being buried by snow as never before in recorded history:

Recently, I wrote about the Great Snow of 1717 a series of 4 storms in 10 days. When that event was over, Cotton Mather reported 3 feet of snow in Boston Common in what was an unprecedented snow event. Fast forward almost exactly 300 years and we have done it again and then some. What’s transpired meteorologically the past 18 days is simply amazing. Part of the reason it’s so incredible is because we don’t have anything officially in the record books to compare this to. We’ve had more snow than any other 14,20 or even 30 day period since the late 1800s and there is still more snow in the forecast.

It's not only the snow, but the cold too. Since the onslaught of snow began the lack of warm air has kept much of the snow from melting. Ironically, it's the prolonged cold which has allowed the snow to pile so high, but has also prevented a heavy wet snow which would have been devastating to the power grid.

There are so many ways to view all this snow. Meteorologcially it’s fascinating to see records being shattered. But the records only go back 130 years or so, a small amount of time when you widen the window of the past beyond what we’ve recorded. How do we know this type of event wasn’t occurring 500 years ago or some other time period - http://www.boston.com/news/weather/weather_wisdom/2015/02/the_great_snow_of_2015.html

Likewise Global Warming, while a small increase in temperature is beneficial in the long term. But as the liberals need to cover their guilt by trying to save polar bears, and seek a crisis to gain power and justify the imposition of their socialist sodomized paradise in which they alone sit in first class as the only wise elite, saving the rest of humanity who end serving them from the cargo hold, thus Climate Change must be hyped and funded to that end.

[KosmicKitty]

I guess those 9 days I spent with no power following Hurricane Irene a few years ago were nothing, then. And what about Sandy?

And how about the 2+ feet of snow I have right now with temps below zero tonight? More global warming?

New England - if you don’t like the weather, wait five minutes.

[SampleMan]

If it does happen again, it will be a new phenomenon, that is clearly the result of manmade global warming. Unless the academic-goverment complex has moved on to a different scare tactic by then, in which case it will have been caused by the new culprit.

[RayChuang88]

This is not news to anyone who studied the climate of Europe between 500 and 1300 AD--thanks to surviving written records from monasteries in Europe at the time.

Because Europe was much warmer than now back then, it's likely that the Gulf Stream flow was much stronger back then--and as a result, the waters around New England were warmer, which meant any hurricane that tracked to New England back then would be quite strong in force upon landfall geographic east of Long Island.

[Capt. Tom]

The hurricanes of that period were likely category 3 storms - like Hurricane Katrina

How did they miss mentioning in this article the 1938 New England hurricane that was a category 3 event.

Us old timers remember it very well, and it is something you'll never forget.
The storm was not forecast in the Boston area like today's storms, and the public was caught totally off guard in 1938. - Tom

[daniel1212]

I want the biggest, coldest weather ever recorded on earth to hit a global warming conference and freeze the daylights out of a bunch of Al Gore gaia clones!

We do not see the warming here yet, but we do have snow.