The 1908 season

Unnamed tropical storm (1908)

Unnamed tropical storm peaked at 35 kt in the North Atlantic between October 19, 1908 and October 23, 1908, 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 19, 1908 to October 23, 1908
Peak strength
Tropical Storm, 35 kt (40 mph)
Landfall
Yes
Accumulated cyclone energy
1.3
Identifier
AL101908

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 19, 12:0035.0N 72.0W35 ktExtratropical
Oct 19, 18:0034.3N 71.5W35 ktExtratropical
Oct 20, 00:0033.7N 71.0W35 ktExtratropical
Oct 20, 06:0033.1N 70.5W35 ktExtratropical
Oct 20, 12:0032.5N 69.7W35 ktTropical storm
Oct 20, 18:0031.7N 68.6W35 ktTropical storm
Oct 21, 00:0030.7N 67.3W35 ktTropical storm
Oct 21, 06:0029.6N 66.3W35 ktTropical storm
Oct 21, 12:0028.5N 66.0W35 ktTropical storm
Oct 21, 18:0027.5N 67.6W35 ktTropical storm
Oct 22, 00:0027.4N 69.9W35 ktTropical storm
Oct 22, 06:0028.2N 72.1W35 ktTropical storm
Oct 22, 12:0029.0N 74.0W35 ktTropical storm
Oct 22, 18:0030.3N 75.4W35 ktTropical storm
Oct 23, 00:0031.4N 76.6W35 ktTropical storm
Oct 23, 06:0032.4N 78.2W35 ktExtratropical
Oct 23, 12:0033.4N 79.7W35 ktExtratropical
Oct 23, 18:0034.2N 81.0W30 ktExtratropical

Other North Atlantic storms of 1908

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.