1950's Northeast Storms?

[DeltaPilot]

I read a lot of blogs and today something came up that I'd like vetted. Fact checked if you will. I know there are a lot of folks here who follow history MUCH closer than i do and Im not sure where to go to check this sort of thing. It has to do with the following statement in a thread in which the dreaded Global Warming topic is being thrown around. Dont want to debate THAT, just would like to know whether THIS quote is true or not....Im particularly interested in the second paragraph and the "three storms" claim.

"In terms of storms the United States hasn't been hit by a Cat 3 or better since Wilma; seven years of time have passed. If human-caused "Glo-bull" warming is responsible for more and more-furious storms, where are they? Missing, that's where.

Mayor Bloomberg intentionally forgets that in the 1950s three successive storms in one year's time hit the east coast and each of them individually did far more damage than Sandy. Yet the 1950s were well before the alleged "explosion" in man-caused Glo-Bull warming took place."

Any help here is MUCH appreciated. Thanks!

[ORH_wxman]

1954 had Hurricane Carol, Hurricane Edna, and Hurricane Hazel all hit the east coast in the same season, so that is correct. As for damage? That's always a tough one. I don't think they did more damage than Sandy on an absolute basis, so I disagree with that claim...Sandy was a hybrid storm that had a pretty large area affected. Also there was less infrastructure area in 1954 to damage. Neither of those storms hit the NYC metro region directly either so the high dollar cost damage would be far less than a storm hitting a densely populated region like Sandy did.

[skierinvermont]

If Sandy had made landfall with the same intensity and forward speed NC or southwards it would have been pretty run of the mill. The type of hurricane that hits the U.S. once every couple years. Bad but not catastrophic.

What was unique about Sandy is it hit a densely populated, storm surge prone, and relatively unprepared area at a unique angle of approach.

[DeltaPilot]

I looked up the Hurricanes, not sure what other storms he might have been talking about so i assumed those were it. Cant agree with the claim myself. Comparing the events just isnt the same given infrastructure,population and property exposures.

[WeatherRusty]

"Yet the 1950s were well before the alleged "explosion" in man-caused Glo-Bull warming took place."

I would take issue with this statement. About half of the warming which has taken place over more than a century took place before the 1950s. Now, some of that earlier warming was not necessarily due to AGW, but the climate system does not care what caused the warming.

[famartin]

I really hate these "blame global warming" arguments with Sandy. Sandy was the worst case scenario storm that any meteorologist worth a grain of salt knew could happen in NYC. It finally did.

Now, if we have a few more Sandy's in a few years, then I *might* start to believe it, til then, it was just luck.

[TerryM]

Hazel certainly caused much more damage in the Toronto area. The city was rebuilt with all the low lying ravines being used a parks & wildlife areas. Huge costs were involved but the city ended up being safer & more livable. I was about 50 miles west and roofs were torn off etc.

If you check the tidal gauge at the Battery you'll find that by 1950's the ocean had already risen ~10" from when records started in 1856. Forget attribution for one moment and you can see that the eastern seaboard faces some infrastructure problems due to SLR.

By the time Sandy hit the tide gauge at the Battery hadn't dipped below the linear trend line for some years indicating that the rate of SLR is increasing & global SLT confirms this. At some point either major infrastructure upgrades have to be made - or people have to start moving back toward higher ground. The costs will be gigantic in either case.

Terry