The 1909 season

Unnamed tropical storm (1909)

Unnamed tropical storm peaked at 45 kt in the North Atlantic between August 28, 1909 and August 31, 1909, 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
August 28, 1909 to August 31, 1909
Peak strength
Tropical Storm, 45 kt (52 mph)
Landfall
Yes
Accumulated cyclone energy
1.6
Identifier
AL081909

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
Aug 28, 00:0023.7N 73.0W35 ktTropical storm
Aug 28, 06:0024.6N 74.4W35 ktTropical storm
Aug 28, 12:0025.5N 76.0W40 ktTropical storm
Aug 28, 18:0026.0N 77.3W40 ktTropical storm
Aug 29, 00:0026.3N 78.5W45 ktTropical storm
Aug 29, 06:0026.4N 79.6W45 ktTropical storm
Aug 29, 09:00 landfall26.4N 80.1W45 ktTropical storm
Aug 29, 12:0026.5N 80.5W40 ktTropical storm
Aug 29, 18:0026.6N 80.9W35 ktTropical storm
Aug 30, 00:0026.8N 81.2W30 ktTropical depression
Aug 30, 06:0027.1N 81.5W30 ktTropical depression
Aug 30, 12:0027.7N 81.7W30 ktTropical depression
Aug 30, 18:0028.5N 81.3W30 ktTropical depression
Aug 31, 00:0029.5N 80.5W35 ktTropical storm
Aug 31, 06:0030.4N 79.7W35 ktTropical storm
Aug 31, 12:0031.0N 79.0W35 ktTropical storm
Aug 31, 18:0031.5N 78.4W30 ktTropical depression

Other North Atlantic storms of 1909

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.