Meteorologist Questions Severity of ‘Perfect Storm’

SEATTLE —  Doubts are brewing in Cliff Mass’ mind about “The Perfect Storm.”

The University of Washington meteorologist says the 1991 North Atlantic tempest depicted in a best-selling book and popular new movie is merely a squall when compared to the Columbus Day storm that hit the West Coast in 1962.

“The Columbus Day storm is considered to be the most damaging mid-latitude cyclone that has hit the United States probably in the last 100 years,” Mass said this week.

“If you were going to have a ‘perfect storm’ in terms of intensity of damage and destruction, that would be it.”

The October blast raked the coast from Northern California to British Columbia in Canada, killing 46 people. It blew down 15 billion board-feet of timber and caused $235 million in property damage--$1.3 billion in today’s dollars.

Sebastian Junger, author of “The Perfect Storm,” said there are four different ways to measure storms--damage, barometric pressure, wind speed and wave height.

“I’m pretty clear in the book,” the New York-based journalist said in a telephone interview. “I didn’t claim it was the worst storm ever.”

Junger’s tale centers on six fishermen who were lost with the swordfishing boat Andrea Gail during the 1991 collision of weather fronts. The more-than-100-foot waves were the largest he could find recorded, Junger said.

“In my storm, it was the wave heights that were so extraordinary and obviously most devastating for boats at sea,” he said.

Experts say both storms were fearsome.

There’s no doubt the 1991 waves were huge--the biggest ever recorded, research meteorologist Val Swail of Environment Canada said. The biggest had an average height of 57 feet, but statistically the absolute largest could have topped 100 feet.

The Columbus Day storm was the biggest wind event to hit the continental United States, said meteorologist Ted Buehner with the National Weather Service in Seattle.

“If you had to draw a comparison between the two, the ‘perfect storm’ was a very slow-moving event, and that’s what helped build the seas,” he said.

“In the case of the Columbus Day storm, it didn’t have a chance to do that” because it moved in 24 hours from Northern California into southern British Columbia.