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Marine High Wind — Cp May To Cp Henlopen De Out 20nm, Atlantic North

2009-11-12 to 2009-11-13 · near Cape May Pt, Cp May To Cp Henlopen De Out 20nm, Atlantic North

49 MG

Magnitude

Wider weather episode

A powerful nor'easter produced storm force wind gusts for around 24 hours across lower Delaware Bay, coastal Delaware and most of coastal New Jersey from the morning of the 12th into the early evening of the 13th. Peak wind gusts were around 52 knots (60 mph). The nor'easter claimed the lives of three fishermen during the early morning of the 12th when their forty-four foot fishing boat sank about 20 miles off of the Cape May County coast. A 74-year-old father, 49-year-old son and a 55-year-old man perished. Seas at the Delaware Bay Buoy, 44009, reached a record breaking 26.7 feet, the highest since its been deployed in 1984. Peak wind gusts included 52 knots (60 mph) at the Delaware Bay Buoy and Fenwick Island (Sussex County, Delaware), 51 knots (59 mph) at the Atlantic City Marina (Atlantic County, New Jersey) and Barnegat (Ocean County, New Jersey) and 49 knots (57 mph) in Cape May (Cape May County, New Jersey), Lewes (Sussex County, Delaware) and Brandywine Shoal Light in Delaware Bay.

The nor'easter was originally Hurricane Ida, which made landfall in Alabama on the morning of the 10th. As Ida made landfall, it lost tropical characteristics and transformed into an extratropical low pressure system. On the morning of November 11th, the low pressure system reached southern Georgia and the next morning (12th) it was located over the coastal waters east of Wilmington, North Carolina. Of equal importance, was a high pressure system that moved across New England and the Canadian Maritimes from the 12th through the 14th. Its effects were threefold, it increased the difference in surface pressure (thus increased the winds), it blocked the low pressure system from moving offshore and provided a very long fetch of onshore flow. The extratropical low pressure system reached its maximum strength of around 995 millibars during the evening of the 12th as it was located just off of Cape Hatteras, North Carolina. From there, the low pressure system slowly drifted off the North Carolina coast as it slowly weakened on the 13th and 14th.

View location on OpenStreetMap → (38.9300, -74.9700)

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 201075. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.