2004: Plotting early nineteenth century hurricane information
Hurricane climate research for the United States is based largely on records spanning only the last 100 years or so [Elsner et al., 2000; Landsea et al., 1996]. Accounts of hurricanes exist in a variety of documents that include compendiums sorted by region and date, documents with records for indiv...
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| Format: | Text |
| Language: | English |
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| Online Access: | http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.608.6424 http://myweb.fsu.edu/jelsner/PDF/Research/BossakElsner2004.pdf |
| Summary: | Hurricane climate research for the United States is based largely on records spanning only the last 100 years or so [Elsner et al., 2000; Landsea et al., 1996]. Accounts of hurricanes exist in a variety of documents that include compendiums sorted by region and date, documents with records for individual states, and personal research. Original sources for these works include direct observations, ship records, newspaper accounts, personal letters, and governmental archive reports. Efforts have been made to collate available document-based evidence of past hurricanes for 1800-1850, a period that represents the years prior to those of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's "Best-Track " data set [Jarvinen et al., 1984], which begins with the year 1851. The purpose of the collation is to bring together historical archives into a single electronic reference and to add value by plotting the information on maps. The result is a historical hurricane impact tool (HHIT) that can be used for investigations of hurricane climate variability and change. It can also serve as the basis for a re-analysis of early American hurricanes. Ludlum [1963] is the primary source document for the HHIT. However, we also include data from more recent historical chronologies compiled by Ho [1989], Barnes [1998, 2001], Cotterly [1999], Henning [1999], Roth [1998, 2000], Roth and Cobb [2001], and Prokop [2001]. These works contain additional information about some of the storms listed in Ludlum [1963], as well as notes on storms not mentioned. David Ludlum's 1963 monograph, titled Early American Hurricanes: 1492-1870, is a compilation of high-quality textual summaries of tropical cyclone activity over the western North Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico |
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