Saxby’s Gale: The Worst Nor’easter Ever?

By

Charles Francis

Late in the fall of 1868, Lieutenant S. M. Saxby of the Royal Navy issued a press
release in London. In it, Saxby predicted a storm of “unusual magnitude would
visit the earth” at 7:00 a.m. October 5, 1869.

Some eleven months later, as the fateful day approached, people up and down the
east coast of North America fearfully awaited what would be the nineteenth
century’s “Perfect Storm.” And unfortunately, they would not be disappointed.

Saxby’s Gale, as the storm came to be called, materialized off Cape Cod on October
4. From Cape Cod, it swept north and east to make landfall on the shores of
Passamaquoddy Bay. Then it continued its path of destruction up the Bay of Fundy
to finally dissipate in the Gulf of St. Lawrence.

Saxby’s Gale is usually thought of a phenomenon that just affected the region
immediately surrounding the Bay of Fundy. In fact it also affected almost the
entire State of Maine. There virtually every bridge in the state was damaged by
the torrential rains that raised streams and rivers. On the Maine side of the St.
Croix River, which empties into Passamaquoddy Bay, some 100 homes were flattened.
There was similar damage on the New Brunswick side of the St. Croix.

When Saxby’s Gale hit the Fundy region, it destroyed an untold number of vessels
including the Genii, whose crew of eleven perished within sight of St. Andrews,
New Brunswick. The St. John River rose some three feet as far up as Fredericton.
Roads and railroads in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick were blocked by fallen trees,
a situation it took days to rectify. Not far from New Brunswick’s Memramcook
River, a schooner was lifted over the dykes and dumped in Taylor Village. A canal
had to be dug to get it back to open water after the storm passed. In Nova
Scotia’s Horton Township on the Minas Basin, storm surge crested Horton Dyke.

We now know that Lieutenant Saxby’s prediction was a fluke. He based his theories
of meteorological prediction on misunderstandings of the effect of the phases of
the moon and tides on climate conditions. There was to be a full moon directly
over the Equator as well as a perigean or extremely high tide on October 5.
Coincidences such as these are now known not to cause storms.

Saxby’s Gale has achieved mythical status. Part of the reason for this is that
some nineteenth century sources say wind speeds exceeded 110 miles per hour. Other
sources place wind speeds at around forty-five miles an hour. This was at a time
when instruments for measuring wind velocity were extremely crude. The 110 plus
mile per hour figure would place Saxby’s Gale in the Category II or III hurricane
range. Possibly because the gale’s winds have been described as hurricane force,
Saxby’s Gale has been called a hurricane. It was a nor’easter. And, as such, it
has been called the worst nor’easter to ever hit the Bay of Fundy region.

There are, however, a fair number of other contenders for the title of worst
nor’easter ever. They include the Groundhog Day Gale of 1976, the gale that
served to give the book The Perfect Storm its name and the Nor’easter of 1926, to
name just a few. All of these nor’easters left their mark on the Bay of Fundy and
further afield.

Nor’easters generally occur between October and April. Their major components are
moisture, cold air and hurricane-force wind. The name relates to the fact that
the wind comes in from the northeast. Nor’easters are lows that start in the
Caribbean and follow the Gulf Stream northward picking up moisture. When the low
meets an Arctic high in the waters off the Maritimes and New England there is
chaos, chaos which results in storms like Saxby’s Gale.

The Nor’easter of 1888 is generally identified as the worst of the nineteenth

century to have hit the United States. It centered over Block Island, Rhode
Island, where it stalled for three days in March 1888. In some areas of upstate
New York and in Connecticut, it dumped between forty and fifty inches of snow. 200
people were killed in New York City as a result of the storm and 400 all together.
In addition, 200 boats were either grounded or destroyed. The nor’easter of March
1993 closed down much of the east coast of the United States. Some meteorologists
described it as possessing the power of a hydrogen bomb.

The Bay of Fundy is considered one of the most susceptible areas in the world for
storm damage. Part of the reason for this is its high tides. Another part of the
reason has to do with the effects of storm surges as they relate to Fundy’s
particular geography.

The Bay of Fundy is, in effect, a great rift valley. The valley begins in the area
of the Grand Banks. This is where the famous Fundy tides start. Even here and even
though ships at sea don’t notice it, the Fundy tide is some three feet higher than
elsewhere on the continental shelf. The worst possible scenario for a Bay of Fundy
storm is to have a storm surge occur at the same time as an incoming high tide.

A storm surge is an elevated dome of water. It has a diameter of anywhere from

fifty to a hundred miles. The dome is created by a combination of winds and low
barometric pressure. The surge moves ahead of the center of the storm. If a storm
surge coincides with a rising tide, as it did when Saxby’s Gale hit Passamaquoddy
Bay, sea levels increase substantially. This explains, in part, why the Horton
Dykes further up Fundy in the Minas Basin were breached.

When the Nor’easter of December 1926 reached the Bay of Fundy, it did so to the
accompaniment of a high tide. Winds ranged from gale force to full hurricane
force. This meant steady winds of forty to seventy miles an hour and gusts to
eighty and more. The combination of tide and storm surge raised water levels in
excess of twelve feet as it pushed into Passamaquoddy Bay.

1920’s weather forecasting was in no way as sophisticated as it is today. In

addition, at that time, few vessels were equipped with radios. In short the Fundy
region and ships in the Bay of Fundy were unprepared for a storm the magnitude of
the Nor’easter of 1926.

The nor’easter of 1926 began as rain. Skies darkened and sheets of precipitation
often obscured Grand Manan off the mouth of Passamaquoddy Bay from the mainland.
As the storm increased the wind rose to a steady seventy miles an hour. The
increase in wind brought with it blizzard conditions.

The worst damage the Nor’easter of 1926 did to vessels was that done to small
craft in Passamaquoddy Bay which were torn from moorings and dashed on land. Both
shores of the bay as well as the bay’s islands were littered with debris and
equipment from vessels their owners had felt secure against anything nature might
produce.

At one point during a break in the storm a ship was observed from Quoddy Head
Light in Lubec Maine being driven in the direction of Grand Manan. Much later,
when the storm was over, she was identified as the A. F. Davidson. The Davidson, a
four-master, was the largest ship driven ashore during the storm. She ended up on
White’s Head on Grand Manan. Alert islanders succeeded in saving all her crew.

After the Davidson, the next largest vessel to be labeled a total loss was the
Corean. She was driven ashore on the New Brunswick side of Passamaquoddy Bay. The
Corean was bound for New York with a cargo of lumber. The lumber went floating out
to sea or ended up and down the shore. The Atlanta, a potato carrier in the upper
reaches of Fundy also lost her cargo. While the Atlanta and her crew were saved,
her cargo had to be dumped to free her. The Atlanta’s potatoes went floating away
on the tide like the timber from the Corean.

The Groundhog Day Gale of 1976 is noted for its extreme intensity and short
duration. At the height of the storm Greenwood, Nova Scotia reported gusts of 118
miles per hour, St. John, New Brunswick, 116 miles per hour and Bear Island,
Maine, 115. Pressure readings as far inland as the upper reaches of the St. John
River near the Quebec border reached record lows of 957 millibars. Waves in the
outer reaches of the Bay of Fundy reached thirty-six feet and the storm surge dome
was twelve feet. The entire waterfront of Eastport, Maine was destroyed.

“The Perfect Storm” of book and movie fame was first known as the All Hallows Eve
Storm of 1991. While most of the damage from the storm was concentrated to the
west and south of the Maritimes and the big Maritime connection to the nor’easter
was Nova Scotia’s relationship to the vessel Andrea Gail through the ship’s crew,
the storm has gone down in local lore because of the notoriety of the book and
movie starring George Clooney. Record amounts of rain fell at Maine’s Camp Ellis
and Nova Scotia and New Brunswick saw coastal flooding. The cause of the massive
amounts of rain was the fact that the storm took three days to pass through the
region.

As to which particular nor’easter was the worst of all time, perhaps the answer to
that lies with individual perceptions. Many residents of the lower Annapolis
Valley consider the worst nor’easter of recent times to be the one that dumped
close to a meter and a half of snow in January of 2004.