The 1931 season

Unnamed tropical storm (1931)

Unnamed tropical storm peaked at 35 kt in the North Atlantic between August 16, 1931 and August 21, 1931.

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 16, 1931 to August 21, 1931
Peak strength
Tropical Storm, 35 kt (40 mph)
Landfall
No; closest approach 55 km (34 mi)
Accumulated cyclone energy
0.5
Identifier
AL041931

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 16, 06:0014.2N 59.3W25 ktTropical depression
Aug 16, 12:0015.0N 60.5W25 ktTropical depression
Aug 16, 18:0015.9N 61.6W30 ktTropical depression
Aug 17, 00:0016.8N 62.7W30 ktTropical depression
Aug 17, 06:0017.7N 63.8W35 ktTropical storm
Aug 17, 12:0018.5N 65.0W35 ktTropical storm
Aug 17, 18:0019.3N 66.2W35 ktTropical storm
Aug 18, 00:0020.1N 67.3W35 ktTropical storm
Aug 18, 06:0020.8N 68.4W30 ktTropical depression
Aug 18, 12:0021.5N 69.5W30 ktTropical depression
Aug 18, 18:0022.1N 70.4W30 ktTropical depression
Aug 19, 00:0022.6N 71.0W30 ktTropical depression
Aug 19, 06:0023.1N 71.4W30 ktTropical depression
Aug 19, 12:0023.5N 71.5W30 ktTropical depression
Aug 19, 18:0023.9N 71.5W30 ktTropical depression
Aug 20, 00:0024.3N 71.4W30 ktTropical depression
Aug 20, 06:0024.7N 71.2W30 ktTropical depression
Aug 20, 12:0025.0N 70.8W25 ktTropical depression
Aug 20, 18:0025.5N 70.3W25 ktTropical depression
Aug 21, 00:0026.3N 69.8W25 ktTropical depression
Aug 21, 06:0027.3N 69.3W25 ktTropical depression

Other North Atlantic storms of 1931

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.