1991 Perfect Storm

The 1991 Perfect Storm, also known as The No-Name Storm (especially in the years immediately after it took place) and the Halloween Gale/Storm, was a damaging and deadly nor'easter that lasted from October 28 to November 2, 1991. While initially an extratropical cyclone, it absorbed Hurricane Grace to its south, later evolving into a small, unnamed Category 1 hurricane. The storm lashed the East coast of the United States with high waves and coastal flooding during its extratropical cyclone phase. Damage from the storm totaled over $200 million (1991 USD) and resulted in thirteen fatalities, six of them from the sinking of the Andrea Gail, a fishing boat. The nor'easter received its name, playing off the common expression, after a conversation between Boston National Weather Service forecaster Robert Case and author Sebastian Junger.

The initial area of low pressure developed off the coast of Atlantic Canada on October 28. Forced southward by a ridge to its north, it reached its peak intensity as a large and powerful extratropical cyclone. Moving over warmer waters, the system transitioned into a subtropical cyclone and subsequently into a tropical storm. It then executed a counter-clockwise loop off the Mid-Atlantic states and turned toward the Northeast. On November 1, the system evolved into a Category 1 hurricane, with peak sustained winds of 75 miles per hour (120 km/h). The National Hurricane Center left it unnamed in order to avoid public confusion, since the storm was already widely reported in its earlier, extratropical phase. The tropical system weakened, striking Nova Scotia as a tropical storm before dissipating. The system was the twelfth and final tropical cyclone, the eighth tropical storm, and fourth hurricane in the 1991 Atlantic hurricane season.

Most of the damage occurred while the storm was extratropical, after waves up to 30 feet (10 m) struck the coastline from Nova Scotia to Florida and southeastward to Puerto Rico. In portions of New England, the damage was worse than that caused by Hurricane Bob two months earlier. Aside from tidal flooding along rivers, the storm's effects were primarily concentrated along the coast. A buoy off the coast of Nova Scotia reported a wave height of 100.7 feet (30.7 m), the highest ever recorded in the province's offshore waters. In Massachusetts, where damage was heaviest, over 100 homes were destroyed or severely damaged. To the north, in Maine, more than 100 homes were affected, including the vacation home of then-President George H. W. Bush. More than 38,000 people were left without power and, along the coast, high waves inundated roads and buildings. Off the shore of New York's Long Island, an Air National Guard helicopter ran out of fuel and crashed; four members of its crew were rescued and one died. Two people died after their boat sank off Staten Island. High waves swept two people to their deaths, one in Rhode Island and one in Puerto Rico, and another person was blown off a bridge to his death. The tropical storm that formed late in the system's duration caused little impact, limited to power outages and slick roads; one person was killed in Newfoundland from a traffic accident related to the storm.