The 1996 Lake Huron cyclone, commonly referred to as Hurricane Huron and Hurroncane, was an extremely rare, strong cyclonic storm system that developed over

Lake Huron Lake Huron ( ) is one of the five Great Lakes of North America. Hydrologically, it comprises the easterly portion of Lake Michigan–Huron, having the same surface elevation as Lake Michigan, to which it is connected by the , Straits of Mack ...

in September 1996. The system resembled a

subtropical cyclone A subtropical cyclone is a weather system that has some characteristics of both tropical and an extratropical cyclone. As early as the 1950s, meteorologists were uncertain whether they should be characterized as tropical or extratropical cyclon ...

at its peak, bearing some characteristics of a

tropical cyclone A tropical cyclone is a rapidly rotating storm system characterized by a low-pressure center, a closed low-level atmospheric circulation, strong winds, and a spiral arrangement of thunderstorms that produce heavy rain and squalls. Dep ...

. It was the first time such a storm has ever been recorded forming over the

Great Lakes The Great Lakes, also called the Great Lakes of North America, are a series of large interconnected freshwater lakes in the mid-east region of North America that connect to the Atlantic Ocean via the Saint Lawrence River. There are five lakes ...

region.

Overview of tropical storms in the Great Lakes region

The Great Lakes region has experienced the remnants of several hurricanes, most commonly those which originally made U.S.

landfall Landfall is the event of a storm moving over land after being over water. More broadly, and in relation to human travel, it refers to 'the first land that is reached or seen at the end of a journey across the sea or through the air, or the fact ...

along the

Gulf of Mexico The Gulf of Mexico ( es, Golfo de México) is an ocean basin and a marginal sea of the Atlantic Ocean, largely surrounded by the North American continent. It is bounded on the northeast, north and northwest by the Gulf Coast of the United ...

. Very few such storms retain any tropical characteristics by the time they reached the Great Lakes. In general, the strongest of these storms resulted from interactions between a hurricane remnant and an extratropical weather system. Only two such storms had hurricane-force winds over the Great Lakes. After merging with a strong cold front, the remnant of the

1941 Texas hurricane The 1941 Texas hurricane, the second storm of the 1941 Atlantic hurricane season, was a large and intense tropical cyclone that struck coastal Texas as a major hurricane in September 1941, causing relatively severe damage. The storm is estimated ...

had hurricane-force winds over

and

Lake Ontario Lake Ontario is one of the five Great Lakes of North America. It is bounded on the north, west, and southwest by the Canadian province of Ontario, and on the south and east by the U.S. state of New York. The Canada–United States border sp ...

, with steady winds of reported over

Detroit Detroit ( , ; , ) is the largest city in the U.S. state of Michigan. It is also the largest U.S. city on the United States–Canada border, and the seat of government of Wayne County. The City of Detroit had a population of 639,111 at t ...

. Half of the resulting deaths occurred in

Toronto Toronto ( ; or ) is the capital city of the Canadian province of Ontario. With a recorded population of 2,794,356 in 2021, it is the most populous city in Canada and the fourth most populous city in North America. The city is the anch ...

, and many injuries resulted from windows blown out in Detroit. Although the center of the storm was tracked over

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = List of sovereign states, Count ...

and other highly populated areas, no other inland region reported similar damage. Similar to the 1996 Lake Huron cyclone, the 1941 hurricane tracked over the Great Lakes in September, when the lakes are at their warmest.

Hurricane Hazel Hurricane Hazel was the deadliest, second costliest, and most intense hurricane of the 1954 Atlantic hurricane season. The storm killed at least 469 people in Haiti before striking the United States near the border between North and Sout ...

entered the Great Lakes region as an extratropical storm just west of

. The storm had lost most of its intensity after tracking over inland. However, the remnant interacted with a trough just south of

Lake Erie Lake Erie ( "eerie") is the fourth largest lake by surface area of the five Great Lakes in North America and the eleventh-largest globally. It is the southernmost, shallowest, and smallest by volume of the Great Lakes and therefore also ha ...

, resulting in explosive strengthening as it entered the Great Lakes region.

was an October storm with winds equivalent to a

Category 1 hurricane Category, plural categories, may refer to: Philosophy and general uses *Categorization, categories in cognitive science, information science and generally *Category of being * ''Categories'' (Aristotle) *Category (Kant) *Categories (Peirce) *C ...

by the time it reached Canada, but most of its damage was caused by extreme rainfall on already-saturated ground. In contrast, the 1996 Lake Huron cyclone developed tropical characteristics over the Great Lakes region completely independent of precursor tropical cyclones. This makes it unique among Great Lakes storms.

Meteorological history

On September 11, 1996, a weak

low-pressure area In meteorology, a low-pressure area, low area or low is a region where the atmospheric pressure is lower than that of surrounding locations. Low-pressure areas are commonly associated with inclement weather (such as cloudy, windy, with possible ...

was situated close to

Lake Superior Lake Superior in central North America is the largest freshwater lake in the world by surface areaThe Caspian Sea is the largest lake, but is saline, not freshwater. and the third-largest by volume, holding 10% of the world's surface fresh wa ...

, as well as a

shortwave trough A shortwave or shortwave trough is an embedded kink in the trough / ridge pattern. Its length scale is much smaller than that of and is embedded within longwaves, which are responsible for the largest scale (synoptic scale) weather systems. Sho ...

over

Ontario Ontario ( ; ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada.Ontario is located in the geographic eastern half of Canada, but it has historically and politically been considered to be part of Central Canada. Located in Central Ca ...

. The storm was centered over

Lake Michigan Lake Michigan is one of the five Great Lakes of North America. It is the second-largest of the Great Lakes by volume () and the third-largest by surface area (), after Lake Superior and Lake Huron. To the east, its basin is conjoined with that o ...

, and its

central pressure Atmospheric pressure, also known as barometric pressure (after the barometer), is the pressure within the atmosphere of Earth. The standard atmosphere (symbol: atm) is a unit of pressure defined as , which is equivalent to 1013.25 millibars, ...

was . The northwest tilt of the low in the atmosphere indicated that the surface center was strengthening, due to baroclinic forcing. In addition to this, analyses of the atmosphere concluded that the cyclone's circulation extended into the upper

troposphere The troposphere is the first and lowest layer of the atmosphere of the Earth, and contains 75% of the total mass of the planetary atmosphere, 99% of the total mass of water vapour and aerosols, and is where most weather phenomena occur. Fro ...

. The cyclone's overall strength increased dramatically while meandering over the

, with surface sustained winds building from . By September 12, the cyclone had been steered by a

cold front A cold front is the leading edge of a cooler mass of air at ground level that replaces a warmer mass of air and lies within a pronounced surface trough of low pressure. It often forms behind an extratropical cyclone (to the west in the Northern ...

to a position over

, with the cyclone's upper-level circulation centered to the west, over

Michigan Michigan () is a state in the Great Lakes region of the upper Midwestern United States. With a population of nearly 10.12 million and an area of nearly , Michigan is the 10th-largest state by population, the 11th-largest by area, and t ...

. During this 24-hour period, the cyclone's central pressure fell from to . After 12:00 UTC on September 12, the low moved southeastward and became more vertically organized. For a brief time, the cyclone moved southeastward over Lake Huron. The greatest intensification occurred at the lower levels of the cyclone. As the cyclone's component layers were well-stacked, the storm was ripe for development. Eventually, the cold front to the north, which was connected to the surface low, became an

occluded front In meteorology, an occluded front is a type of weather front formed during cyclogenesis. The classical and usual view of an occluded front is that it initiates when a cold front overtakes a warm front near a cyclone, such that the warm air is separ ...

, as it entangled with the surface

warm front A warm front is a density discontinuity located at the leading edge of a homogeneous warm air mass, and is typically located on the equator-facing edge of an isotherm gradient. Warm fronts lie within broader troughs of low pressure than cold f ...

. The occluded front extended from Lake Huron to

Pennsylvania Pennsylvania (; ( Pennsylvania Dutch: )), officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a state spanning the Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes regions of the United States. It borders Delaware to its southeast, ...

on September 13. A swath of showers and thunderstorms was positioned across the area. More showers were centered near the occluded low. Between 12:00 UTC on September 13 and 00:00 UTC on September 14, a shortwave trough rotated throughout the area of the occluded front. This caused the mid-level portion of the

cyclone In meteorology, a cyclone () is a large air mass that rotates around a strong center of low atmospheric pressure, counterclockwise in the Northern Hemisphere and clockwise in the Southern Hemisphere as viewed from above (opposite to an an ...

to move eastward, centering itself just east of Lake Huron. During the same period, the surface circulation of the storm moved slowly over Lake Huron, beginning to align with the mid-level circulation, and deepened to . In response to this intensification, the maximum sustained winds of the storm increased as well. After 00:00 UTC on September 14, the lower-level and mid-level circulations of the cyclone moved westward, becoming vertically-stacked again. In contrast to the earlier developments, the baroclinic processes of the system weakened rapidly, and the system became more shallow. However, the low-level circulation of the cyclone continued to intensify, and the storm's central pressure dropped to , as the storm reached its peak intensity, due to increased circulation. At the time of its peak intensity, the cyclone had maximum sustained winds of , equivalent to that of a high-end tropical storm, and on the threshold of a Category 1 hurricane on the

Saffir–Simpson scale The Saffir–Simpson hurricane wind scale (SSHWS) classifies hurricanes—which in the Western Hemisphere are tropical cyclones that exceed the intensities of tropical depressions and tropical storms—into five categories distinguished b ...

(SSHWS). Between 12:00 UTC on September 14 and 00:00 UTC on September 15, visible satellite imagery of the cyclone revealed that it resembled

, as it possessed multiple characteristics of a

while also possessing hybrid characteristics, with an eye-like feature about wide. In addition to the eye, convective clouds had also formed, creating an eyewall resembling that seen in tropical cyclones. Furthermore, bands of

convection Convection is single or multiphase fluid flow that occurs spontaneously due to the combined effects of material property heterogeneity and body forces on a fluid, most commonly density and gravity (see buoyancy). When the cause of the c ...

continued extending westward about . Soon afterward, prevailing winds in the area shifted to the east-northeast and rapidly increased,

shearing Sheep shearing is the process by which the woollen fleece of a sheep is cut off. The person who removes the sheep's wool is called a '' shearer''. Typically each adult sheep is shorn once each year (a sheep may be said to have been "shorn" o ...

the system, causing it to weaken. In contrast to the earlier stages of the system's life, the system was now much shallower and harbored

energy In physics, energy (from Ancient Greek: ἐνέργεια, ''enérgeia'', “activity”) is the quantitative property that is transferred to a body or to a physical system, recognizable in the performance of work and in the form of ...

closer to the surface. Surface analysis indicated that the cyclone had multiple central circulations at the time, with a weaker cyclonic circulation persisting over the eastern shore of

and another center north of

. During this 12-hour period, the cyclone decayed rapidly, mainly in the lower troposphere. Twelve-hour height rises also occurred in the structure of the cyclone, with the air pressure increasing at various layers of the cyclone, ranging from at the surface level to at the -level. On September 15, the cyclone weakened into a

remnant low A post-tropical cyclone is a former tropical cyclone that no longer possesses enough tropical qualities to be considered a tropical cyclone. The word may refer to a former tropical cyclone undergoing extratropical transition or a tropical cyclone ...

and left

, before dissipating soon afterward. High waves were also created by the storm in

Impact

Excessive rain of over fell over the land surrounding the Great Lakes. This caused flooding in both the United States around Buffalo,

New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States New York may also refer to: Film and television * '' ...

and on the eastern shore of Lake Huron in

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by to ...

. However, other than the flooding caused by the storm, there were no reports of fatalities or further significant damage from the storm.

Notes

References

External links

* * * * * (Paper discussing computer simulations of "Hurricane Huron"). {{DEFAULTSORT:1996 Lake Huron Cyclone

Huron Huron may refer to: People * Wyandot people (or Wendat), indigenous to North America * Wyandot language, spoken by them * Huron-Wendat Nation, a Huron-Wendat First Nation with a community in Wendake, Quebec * Nottawaseppi Huron Band of Potawato ...

Lake Huron Cyclone, 1996 Lake Huron Cyclone, 1996

1996 File:1996 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: A bomb explodes at Centennial Olympic Park in Atlanta, set off by a radical anti-abortionist; The center fuel tank explodes on TWA Flight 800, causing the plane to crash and killing everyone o ...