![]() ![]() The search effort covered about 109,000 square miles and covered areas from the Grand Banks off Newfoundland, where the ship had been fishing, to Cape Cod, according to the Coast Guard report. ![]() 31, after the ship's owner, Robert Brown, reported it overdue from the fishing expedition the day prior. In fact, Canadian weather buoys in the area reported peak wave heights in excess of 60 feet tall, with wind gusts approaching major hurricane force, according to the Coast Guard's investigation.Īn all-out search for the crew and the Andrea Gail involving U.S. Some of the waves that slammed into the Andrea Gail were at least 39 feet high, approaching the height of a typical four-story building. The 'Perfect Storm' as seen on satellite Oct. The captain, Billy Tyne, gave a final weather report to Linda Greenlaw, captain of a fellow swordfishing boat, the Hannah Boden, noting that he and his crew were experiencing winds of more than 90 miles per hour and 30-foot-tall waves. 28, 1991, about 162 mi (261 km) east of Sable Island, located about 180 miles offshore of Halifax, Nova Scotia. ![]() "It was an unprecedented set of circumstances,” Case, who died in 2008, said of the Perfect Storm.Īccording to the United States Coast Guard's investigation into what happened to the Andrea Gail, the doomed vessel sent its last transmission at around 6 p.m. With the Perfect Storm dropping to a pressure of 28.70 inches (972 mb) and a strong high-pressure system to the north, an intense pressure gradient formed, kicking up strong winds from the Carolina coast northward, which caused massive waves. ![]() "The capture of Grace into the Perfect Storm led to further strengthening due to the temperature contrast between the warm moist unstable air within Grace’s circulation and the colder circulation within the developing storm," said AccuWeather Hurricane Expert Dan Kottlowski. "But then, like throwing gasoline on a fire, a dying Hurricane Grace delivered immeasurable tropical energy to create the Perfect Storm."Īs Hurricane Grace weakened and the circulation that would become the Perfect Storm continued to strengthen, Grace got pulled into the developing Perfect Storm. “These circumstances alone could have created a strong storm,” Case said in an interview with The Associated Press back in 2000 around when the movie was released. George Clooney, Mark Wahlberg and Diane Lane led a cast that turned the film into a box office smash hit and cemented the storm's legacy in the pop-culture consciousness.Īll of this was predicated by what turned out to be an extraordinary meteorological setup. Three years after the book's publication, the storm was immortalized on the big screen in a movie of the same name. Case's use of the term perfect would go on to serve as inspiration for author Sebastian Junger, who wrote a critically acclaimed 1997 novel about the storm, detailing the tragic fate of the Andrea Gail, a commercial fishing vessel from Gloucester, Massachusetts, that was lost at sea with six crew members on board following a fishing trip in the northern Atlantic. That's how Bob Case, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Boston, categorized the storm at the time. Thirty years ago, a trio of atmospheric factors came together to form a storm so uniquely dangerous and powerful that its mesmerizing development could only be described in one way: perfect. ![]()
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