The 1851 season

Unnamed tropical storm (1851)

Unnamed tropical storm peaked at 60 kt in the North Atlantic between October 16, 1851 and October 19, 1851, and made landfall.

Radar

Reflectivity now over Unnamed tropical storm. Open it to see storms, cones and warnings on the map.

Open the live radar with storms, cones and warnings

Radar mosaic and map layers from NOAA MRMS. Boundaries from the Iowa Environmental Mesonet.

The storm

Basin
North Atlantic
Dates
October 16, 1851 to October 19, 1851
Peak strength
Tropical Storm, 60 kt (69 mph)
Landfall
Yes
Accumulated cyclone energy
4.6
Identifier
AL061851

Deaths and damage

No source this site reads publishes a machine-readable casualty or damage figure for a storm of this era. The National Hurricane Center’s season tables begin in 1995 and carry deaths and damage only from 2005 in the Atlantic and 2020 in both basins; the US Storm Events record begins in 1996.

Track

Time (UTC)PositionWindPressureStatus
Oct 16, 00:0028.7N 78.0W40 ktTropical storm
Oct 16, 06:0029.1N 77.8W40 ktTropical storm
Oct 16, 12:0029.5N 77.5W50 ktTropical storm
Oct 16, 18:0030.1N 77.1W50 ktTropical storm
Oct 17, 00:0030.7N 76.6W60 ktTropical storm
Oct 17, 06:0031.2N 76.3W60 ktTropical storm
Oct 17, 12:0031.6N 75.9W60 ktTropical storm
Oct 17, 18:0032.0N 75.5W60 ktTropical storm
Oct 18, 00:0032.7N 74.9W60 ktTropical storm
Oct 18, 06:0033.3N 74.3W60 ktTropical storm
Oct 18, 12:0034.0N 73.8W60 ktTropical storm
Oct 18, 18:0035.3N 73.0W60 ktTropical storm
Oct 19, 00:0037.0N 72.6W50 ktTropical storm
Oct 19, 06:0038.5N 72.1W50 ktTropical storm
Oct 19, 12:0040.2N 71.8W50 ktTropical storm
Oct 19, 15:00 landfall41.1N 71.7W50 ktTropical storm
Oct 19, 18:0042.0N 71.6W40 ktTropical storm

Other North Atlantic storms of 1851

What this means

A best track is the record a warning agency settles on after the storm, not what it said at the time: position, maximum sustained wind and central pressure every six hours, revised against every observation that came in later. Category is the Saffir-Simpson scale, which runs from Category 1 at 64 kt to Category 5 at 137 kt and reads wind only, so it says nothing about surge or rain. Accumulated cyclone energy adds up the square of the wind through the storm's life, so it counts strength and duration together.

Sources

Storm history from NOAA NCEI’s International Best Track Archive for Climate Stewardship (IBTrACS), which merges the official best track of every warning agency. Live storms, cones, watches and warnings from the National Hurricane Center and the Central Pacific Hurricane Center. Archived radar from NOAA’s Level II archive.

The National Hurricane Center has published no tropical cyclone report for this storm.