The Portland Gale (Event Over)

Join Weather Historian John Horrigan as he recounts the Portland Gale 109 years from the day. On Nov. 26, 1898, the steamship SS Portland left India Wharf in Boston, Massachusetts for Portland, Maine, on a regularly scheduled run. She never made it to port. None of the 192 passengers and crew survived the massive storm that wreaked havoc on New England's coast — a storm that was later dubbed "The Portland Gale" after the tragic loss of the ship. The storm that struck the coast of New England on November 26 and 27, 1898. The storm formed when two low pressure areas merged off the coast of Virginia and travelled up the coast; at its peak, it produced a storm surge of about ten feet in Cohasset harbor and hurricane-force winds in Nantucket. The storm killed more than 400 persons and sank more than 150 boats and ships. It also changed the course of the North River, separating the Humarock portion of Scituate, Massachusetts from the rest of Scituate.