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New Clues to the Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald
LiveScience via Yahoo ^ | 5/19/06 | Robert Roy Britt

Posted on 05/19/2006 9:12:53 PM PDT by ZGuy

Weather experts have "hindcasted" the storm that sunk the Edmund Fitzgerald on Lake Superior during the November 1975.

Hurricane-force gusts and waves coming from an unexpected angle likely contributed to the disaster immortalized by Gordon Lightfoot in the song, "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald," researchers say.

All 29 crewmembers died.

"During the late afternoon and early evening of Nov. 10, conditions deteriorated rapidly with winds in excess of 69 mph, hurricane-force gusts [over 74 mph] and waves more than 25 feet high," said Thomas Hultquist, science and operations officer at the NOAA National Weather Service forecast office in Negaunee, Mich.

The freighter, thought like the Titanic to be invincible, was heading south. Waves were traveling west-to-east, the new analysis shows. This could have created a hazardous rolling motion. The ship sank about 15 miles from Whitefish Bay.

Lake Superior is the largest of the Great Lakes.

"While high winds on Lake Superior are not rare, it is unusual for the waves to get that high on the lake," said Schwab. "It's unlikely that Captain Ernest McSorley, the skipper of the Edmund Fitzgerald, had ever seen anything like that in his career."

The findings are detailed in the May issue of the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society.


TOPICS: Miscellaneous
KEYWORDS: edmundfitzgerald; gordonlightfoot; lakesuperior; shipwreck; soolocks
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To: LegendHasIt

He's back on the "Carefree Highway".


Currently on his 2006 Tour.

http://www.lightfoot.ca/


21 posted on 05/19/2006 9:29:04 PM PDT by headstamp (Nothing lasts forever, Unless it does.)
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To: LegendHasIt

By the 1990s he was mostly touring, giving just fifty concerts a year by 1998, mainly in North America, while he released two albums in the period. In the fall of 2002, he was in Orillia when he suffered a near-fatal abdominal hemorrhage that left him in a comatose state for a short period of time. He recovered and later returned to the music business with the album Harmony and an appearance on Canadian Idol. In 2005, he made a low-key tour called, with characteristically droll humour, the "Better Late Than Never Tour".


22 posted on 05/19/2006 9:29:36 PM PDT by Westlander (Unleash the Neutron Bomb)
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To: Spruce

Every man knew and the Captain did too....


23 posted on 05/19/2006 9:29:45 PM PDT by drc43 (Judges... Judges... get it done, then we can discuss priorities)
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To: LegendHasIt
Whatever happened to Gordon Lightfoot anyway?

I got tickets to his show in Milwaukee this fall.

24 posted on 05/19/2006 9:29:52 PM PDT by Last Dakotan
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To: ZGuy
One long boat!


25 posted on 05/19/2006 9:29:59 PM PDT by JOE6PAK (Still crazy after all these BEERS!)
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To: drc43

The wind in the wires made a tattletale sound
And a wave broke over the railing
And every man knew, as the Captain did, too,
T'was the witch of November come stealing.


26 posted on 05/19/2006 9:30:36 PM PDT by Spruce (Keep your mitts off my wallet)
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To: Clemenza

Did he get the apartment that you wanted?


27 posted on 05/19/2006 9:32:18 PM PDT by Calvin Locke
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To: ZGuy
I was the Officer of the Day in Detroit that night, Coast Guard of course. No one could believe what had happened. That next night, we lost a couple of duck hunters in western Lake Erie, and launched the biggest search effort up to the time on the lakes.

As has been said in this forum, the lakes are incredibly trecherous, and are nothing like the open seas. I've been on the lake and on the Pacific, and had the crap scared out of me on both.

What makes the Lakes especially trecherous is how quickly the swells can come, and that they can come from several directions at once.

28 posted on 05/19/2006 9:33:07 PM PDT by SgtK
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To: Calvin Locke
LOL! Nice to see somebody got my Seinfeld reference.

Remember: Every aspect of life can be linked in some way to Seinfeld.

29 posted on 05/19/2006 9:33:09 PM PDT by Clemenza (Populists Socialists, AND YANKEES FANS Will be Shot on Site)
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To: headstamp

thanks for the link :)


30 posted on 05/19/2006 9:33:41 PM PDT by kinoxi
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31 posted on 05/19/2006 9:33:50 PM PDT by Cannoneer No. 4 ( http://cannoneerno4.wordpress.com)
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To: Spruce

The thing I love about this verse, is the rise and fall of the music behind it, so evocative of waves...brilliantly done.


32 posted on 05/19/2006 9:34:14 PM PDT by rlmorel ("Innocence seldom utters outraged shrieks. Guilt does." Whittaker Chambers)
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To: Indy Pendance

1. Lake Superior is, by surface area, the world's largest freshwater lake.
2. The surface area of Lake Superior (31,700 square miles or 82,170 square kilometers) is greater than the combined areas of Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, and New Hampshire.
3. Lake Superior contains as much water as all the other Great Lakes combined, even throwing in two extra Lake Eries.
4. Lake Superior contains 10% of all the earth's fresh surface water.
5. There is enough water in Lake Superior (3,000,000,000,000,000--or 3 quadrillion-- gallons) to flood all of North and South America to a depth of one foot.
6. The deepest point in Lake Superior (about 40 miles north of Munising, Michigan) is 1,300 feet (400 meters) below the surface.
7. Over 300 streams and rivers empty into Lake Superior.
8, The average elevation of Lake Superior is about 602 feet above sea level.
9. The Lake Superior watershed region ranges in size from 160 miles inland near Wabakimi Provincial Park to only 5 miles inland from Pictured Rocks National Seashore.
10. The Lake Superior shoreline, if straightened out, could connect Duluth and the Bahama Islands.
11. The average underwater visibility of Lake Superior is 27 feet, making it easily the cleanest and clearest of the Great Lakes. Underwater visibility in places reaches 100 feet. Lake Superior has been described as "the most oligotrophic lake in the world."
12. The lake is about 350 miles (563 km) in length and 160 miles (257 km) in width.
13. In the summer, the sun sets more than 35 minutes later on the western shore of Lake Superior than at its southeastern edge.


33 posted on 05/19/2006 9:34:38 PM PDT by Westlander (Unleash the Neutron Bomb)
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To: LegendHasIt
Whatever happened to Gordon Lightfoot anyway?

He refuses to admit himself a has been and is still making albums, his latest ('Harmony') was released in 2004.
34 posted on 05/19/2006 9:35:13 PM PDT by Jaysun (Even with a paddle, shit creek ain't no picnic.)
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To: Constitution Day; Xenalyte; TheBigB

ping!

Ha ha, suckers, it's earworm time!


35 posted on 05/19/2006 9:36:01 PM PDT by Toby06 (I'm a conservative-I'll support conservative candidates. That does NOT necessarily mean republican)
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To: SgtK

What a memorable night for you. Thanks for telling us.

Welcome to FR!


36 posted on 05/19/2006 9:36:19 PM PDT by onyx (Deport the trolls --- send them back to DU)
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To: Spruce

T'was the witch of November come stealing.

37 posted on 05/19/2006 9:36:29 PM PDT by JOE6PAK (Still crazy after all these BEERS!)
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To: Westlander

Cool facts. Did you know, it takes 24 hours to drive around Lake Michigan? I'm sure it longer for Lake Superior. And it's cold, even in August or September, you can't last long, your bones start to ache.


38 posted on 05/19/2006 9:38:07 PM PDT by Indy Pendance
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To: Spruce
Love that line....."the witch of November"..........

Shortly before deploying my son bought himself an electric guitar, largely so that he could learn to play "The Wreck Of The Edmund Fitzgerald".

I'm sure many a soldier in the northern part of Kuwait has been serenaded with it by now.;^)

He is fascinated by the story, and so am I.

We always seem to have really wicked weather right around that date every year.

39 posted on 05/19/2006 9:38:11 PM PDT by MozartLover ( My son, my soldier, my hero. Protect him, Lord, wherever he goes, and keep him strong.)
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To: Petronski; bannie; ZGuy; drc43; Spruce
> ...Cathedral...Fitzgerald
> ...railing...stealing

Terrific song, always gives me chills.

But it's got some of the most tortured rhymes in existence.

40 posted on 05/19/2006 9:38:17 PM PDT by dayglored (Listen, strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government!)
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