The 36th Anniversary of the Edmund Fitzgerald Shipwreck

It's hard for me to believe that it's been 36 years since the Edmund Fitzgerald sank in Lake Superior, just 17 miles northwest of the entrance to Whitefish Bay. The ship departed Superior, WI on November 9th with over 26,000 tons of taconite ore headed for Detroit, MI.

Along the way, the seemingly unsinkable ship ran into a very powerful autumn storm with 50 knot winds and sustained wave heights measured at 16 to 18 feet. (Peak wave heights may have been 1.5 to two times

that!)

The storm took shape in Kansas on November 9th as an area of low pressure with a minimum central pressure of 29.53". The storm's minimum pressure dropped to 29.00" by the morning of the 10th as it moved into Michigan's Upper Peninsula with 30 to 45 knot winds (across the lake) out of the east, northeast, or southeast. The vessel remained relatively sheltered from these initial winds because its track hugged the northern shore of Lake Superior. But as the low deepened to 28.88" and crossed into Ontario that evening, the winds suddenly shifted to the northwest. This wind shift was accompanied by a sudden increase in wave height along the northeast shore of the lake, which proved to be disastrous for the Fitzgerald and its 29 crew members, all of whom perished.

The year after the shipwreck, a song written about the tragedy by Gordon Lightfoot topped the pop charts.