I know today little is talked about the Great 1938 "Long Island Express" Hurricane, but in many ways it was a stronger hurricane than Hugo... At landfall it was moving at over 60mph! Now you can't just add the 60mph to the storm (HORRIBLE PHYSICS) but it does add some wind speeds when you have a hurricane hitting the shore perpendicular like you did with the 1938 hurricane... It causes the eye to shrink/tighten therefore leading to an increase in pressure gradient and wind speeds... How much? That's impossible to say but you CAN'T just add the 60mph to it... I would maybe add 1/3 of it in this particular case if I had to guess, but each hurricane/situation is unique...
It went straight across Long Island, NY (2:30pm) into Connecticut (4:00pm)... The worst of this strong Category-3 hurricane (946mb) was felt in Rhode Island... Providence, RI was under 13 feet of water as some places along the Rhode Island shore had 16-18 foot + storm surges as it coincided with high tide! Not only did this hurricane produced a massive storm surge, it also produced the highest recorded wind gust associated with a tropical cyclone in US history... The Blue Hills Observatory had 121 mph sustained winds with a US record on land wind gust of 186 mph for landfalling hurricanes... Incredible if you think about all the horrible hurricanes that have struck the US... Of course this is just recorded history and there is no doubt plenty of hurricanes have produced MUCH higher wind gust that just wasn't recorded... Ie: 1935 Labor Day, Camille, Andrew, etc...
Unfortunately when it was over at least 600 people lost their lives... Many people had NO IDEA the hurricane was coming until it was already on them... Remember it was moving at 60 mph, plus most forecasts had it going out to sea not affecting the North East... There really was basically NO WARNING!!!
One more interesting/incredible fact about this famous hurricane was the amazing waves it produced... Some waves over 40 feet were associated with the very high storm surge... The waves were smashing so hard into the New England coast line that seismograph machines along the Pacific Coast recorded the shock of many of these incredible waves! Absolutely Crazy!!! If you like historical weather, then I would take the time to read up on this amazing US hurricane... There are many books about it and without a doubt it will always go down as one of the strongest US landfalling hurricanes of all time!!! If you think about this is the last horrible hurricane to directly strike the North East!!! I hope New Englanders realize that there is ALWAYS a HUGE hurricane threat even though it has happened in a long long time!!! Unfortunately, history will repeat itself!!!
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