Today Is 50th Anniversary Of Storied Edmund Fitzgerald Shipwreck: The Event And Song That Made It Famous

The Edmund Fitzgerald, which sank in one of the worst
"gales of November" on record, 50 years ago today. 

It seems like yesterday to me, but it's already the 50th anniversary of the day the Edmund Fitzgerald sank in a brutal, unmerciful storm blasting through Lake Superior. 

Thanks perhaps in large part to the song by Gordon Lightfoot, the Edmund Fitzgerald is easily among the most famous shipwrecks in U.S. history, right up there with the Titanic and the sinking of the fishing boat Andrea Gail during the 1991 "Perfect Storm."

At age 13 at the time, I was already a hopeless weather geek and to this day I clearly remember that storm, and the brief, scattered news reports at the time when the Edmond Fitzgerald sank. 

Gordon Lighftoot turned the wreck into modern folklore with his iconic song about the disaster.

Every time the wind comes up this time of year - which is frequently - my mind goes to the vicious "gales of November" on the Great Lakes.

THE EDMUND/EDMOND FITZGERALD

The 1975 sinking of the Edmund Fitzgerald was the second time a ship by that name sank in the Great Lakes. 

Back in 1870 a two-masted schooner, the Edmond Fitzgerald - Edmond spelled with an "o" instead of the "u" we had in the 1975 shipwreck - was built to carry grain and wood in the Great Lakes.

In 1883, the original Edmond Fitzgerald sank in yet another November storm in the Great Lakes. On November 14 that year, the two-mastered schooner was trying to get across Lake Erie with one last cargo of wheat before shipping closed on the lake that season. 

The schooner got caught in a snowstorm with high winds. The crew got disoriented, and the Edmond Fitzgerald ran aground on a shoal near Long Point, Ontario. The schooner broke apart, and the crew of seven all died. 

It's no accident that both ships of the same name were lost in November. The month is the scariest of them all on the Great Lakes.

The water in the lakes isn't exactly warm in November. But those lakes absorbed the sun's warmth all summer, so the water is now much tepid than the frigid air that starts to blow in from Canada this time of year. 

The contrast between the increasingly frigid air and remaining mild autumn air to the south often makes storms in the middle of the nation pretty strong to begin with. 

Once these storms enter the Great Lakes, the relatively mild water gives the storms an added boost of energy.  The storms intensify, the wind howls harder than ever. Torrential rains and thunder peal in the warm air on the east side of these storms. Blinding snow and freezing rain rage on the west and north side of these powerful November Great Lakes gales.   

Even as the storms begin to depart, strong, cold winds blow over the comparatively warm water, causing blinding lake effect snows.

For centuries, hundreds of long ships plied all five Great Lakes carrying lumber, limestone, copper, cars, crops and iron. 

The modern day Edmund Fitzgerald was launched from Detroit in 1958. This was a big deal. As NPR reports:

"It was in fact the greatest ship on the Great Lakes," John U. Bacon said in his new bestseller The Gales of November: The Untold Story of the Edmund Fitzgerald."  "Fifteen thousand people came out to see the launching. When it went through the Soo Locks or Detroit or Duluth, people would sit half a day to see this ship come through. It was a rock star."

Late on November 8, 1975 the storm formed in the Oklahoma panhandle. By the morning of November 9,   the fast-strengthening storm was over Kansas, on a path that would take it over Lake Superior  on November 10. 

While the storm was developing in the Plains, the Edmund Fitzgerald left port with its 26,000 tons of taconite in 21 watertight cargo hatches. 

Weather map on November 10, 1975 shows an
intense storm right over Lake Superior. 

A  gale warning was issued for Lake Superior and the captain of the Edmund Fitzgerald acknowledged receiving the warning. Earlier forecasts had indicated that the storm would not be as intense as it turned out to be. 

Subsequent forecasts increased the expected winds with the storm, but by then, literally, that ship had sailed. The Edmund Fitzgerald ended up in the teeth of the storm. 

By mid-afternoon of November 10, the Fitzgerald had "a bad list" according to a radio transmission by the ship's captain. 

Heavy seas were crashing over the deck in one of the worst seas the crew had ever seen on Lake Superior.  Some weather observations on and near Lake Superior were reporting wind gusts of near hurricane force. 

The last radio transmission from the Edmund Fitzgerald came at 7:10 p.m., when the captain radioed that they were "holding their own." 

But very soon after that, the Edmund Fitzgerald was gone. 

The best guess is that the ship suddenly sank shortly thereafter. There were no distress signals. The Edmund Fitzgerald sat 17 miles from the relative calm of Whitefish Bay. The ship was later found, broken in two, in 530 feet of water. 

THE SONG

Gordon Lightfoot wrote and performed "The Wreck
of the Edmund Fitzgerald," a stunning story song
that beautifully illustrates the tragedy
of that shipwreck 50 years ago today. 

"The Wreck Of The Edmund Fitzgerald" was easily among the best songs of the 1970s, created by one of the most gifted songwriters of the era. 

It was an unlikely hit. It ran for six minutes, much longer than most pop songs.  It really didn't have much of a chorus, or a hook. It was wordy. 

But the melody, the arrangement and the meticulous storyline Lightfoot crafted made "The Wreck Of the Edmund Fitzgerald irresistible. 

It hit its peak on the Billboard charts just about a year after the actual sinking of the Edmund Fitzgerald.  The highest it reached was #2 on the charts during the weeks of November 20 and 27, blocked from the top spot both weeks by "Tonight's The Night," by Rod Stewart.

To give you a sense of how awful the music charts could sometimes be in the mid 1970s, I'll give you this nugget:  At the same time "The Wreck Of The Edmund Fitzgerald" was in the Billboard Top 10, so was "Disco Duck" and "Muskrat Love." 

Go figure. 

But at least Gordon Lightfoot graced us with this exquisite folk ballad that year. 

The song is recognizable from the very first chord, and immediately evokes what the 29 doomed men on the Edmund Fitzgerald must have seen and felt on November 10, 1975. 

When I hear "The Wreck Of The Edmund Fitzgerald," my mind immediately goes to a storm-wracked shoreline, all colors of the landscape reduced to a monochromatic dark gray amid the gales. I picture enormous waves crashing onto the rocks, screaming winds battering storm-weary evergreens on land, sheets of rain blasting sideways.

There were about 6,000 shipwrecks in the Great Lakes between 1875 and 1975. Lightfoot turned the Edmund Fitzgerald tragedy into a story for the ages. 

According to Rolling Stone, one night in his home in Toronto, Lightfoot was playing around with the melody of an old Irish dirge that was stuck in his head. Around 10 p.m. he decided to take a break. He noticed how stormy it was outside.

"The wind was howling even in Toronto,"  he said, "and I went back up to the attic thinking, 'I wonder what it's like up on Lake Superior. It must've been awful."

That windy night when Lightfoot was playing with the dirge melody was November 10, 1975, the night the Edmund Fitzgerald sank. He unknowingly started writing the song at just about the same time the ship disappears beneath Lake Superior's punishing waves. 

Shortly after Lightfoot learned about the shipwreck,  the lyrics came quickly. 

 According to Complex.com, Lightfoot wrote the following on an Ask Me Anything (AMA) on Reddit back in 2014: 

"The Edmund Fitzgerald really seems to go unnoticed at the time, anything I'd seen in the newspapers or magazines were very short, brief articles, and I felt I would like to expand upon the story of the sinking of the ship itself."

Lightfoot continued: 

"And it was quite an undertaking to do that. I went and bought all of the old newspapers, got everything in chronological order and went ahead and dit it because I already had a melody in my mind ."  

 Lightfoot was obsessive as he crafted the song

 As NPR reported:

"'He feared being inaccurate, corny or worse, appearing to exploit a tragedy for profit, ' writes John U. Bacon in his new bestseller, "The Gales of November, the Untold Story of the Edmond Fitzgerald. 'But more than that, as a fellow sailor and a child of the Great Lake...this song - whatever it was - was deeply personal.'"

Lightfoot only took a few liberties with the lyrics.  The Edmund Fitzgerald was headed for Detroit, not Cleveland. 

The lyric  "When suppertime the old cook came on deck/sayin it's too rough to feed ya/At 7 pm., a main hatchway caved in/He said, Fellas, it's been good to know ya."

Of course it's impossible to know who said what during the last hours and minutes before the ship sank, but the lyric is a gut punch nonetheless.

After Lightfoot wrote and released the song, an investigation revealed that crew members were blameless in the sinking. So in live concerts, he changed the words regarding the hatchway to "At 7 p.m. it grew dark...."

Toward the end of the song, Lightfoot sings: "In a musty old hall in Detroit they prayed/In the maritime sailors' cathedral."

The "musty old hall" was really the Mariner's Church of Detroit. A parishioner once insisted to Lightfoot the church is not "musty." So, in live concerts, he sang about the "rustic old hall."

Loved ones of the men who died on the Edmund Fitzgerald, and other people associated with Great Lakes shipping obviously embraced the song.

As the Great Lakes Museum tells us:

"After Lightfoot's death in 2023, the Mariner's Church rang its bell 29 times for the crew of the Edmund Fitzgerald and an additional 30th time for Lightfoot himself."

                                                                    ---30----

Click on this link or if you see the image below, click on that for Gordon Lightfoot's "The Wreck Of The Edmund Fitzgerald"  

The Gales Of November (Well Sort Of) Have Arrived

Friday night's gusts to 40 mph took down almost all
the remaining leaves on the trees around my 
St. Albans, Vermont yard, leaving the lawn 
carpeted in orange and brown.

 It was a little late in coming, but the usual windy cold season regime finally arrived in Vermont Friday, which featured a very gusty night in the Champlain Valley. 

We've got another round of gusty winds Monday night and early Tuesday. 

Summer and early fall in Vermont usually feature very little wind, except in strong thunderstorms. By fall, the winds pick up, especially in the Champlain Valley, as stronger large scale storms start to take hold. 

Although it can be windy anywhere in Vermont this time of year and in the winter, the Champlain Valley is ground zero for gusty days and nights. 

That's especially true this time of year. A typical November storm track is up through the Great Lakes and into Ontario and Quebec. That sets up south winds.  The Green Mountains and Adirondacks act as a funnel, constricting the air and making move high speed south to north up the valley. 

These windy spells are frequent, and it doesn't take a very strong storm system to produce them.  One storm passed well to our  northwest Friday night, producing gusts to and maybe even a little over 40 mph in spots. 

It's been such a calm autumn until now that I was surprised how many small branches were on the ground after that windy spell Friday night. Weakened and dead twigs accumulated in trees during a remarkably wind-free summer and fall. The first windy night produced, an, um, windfall of downed small branches. 

Nothing damaging of course. The winds weren't strong enough to cause much trouble.  It did take down most of the remaining leaves on the trees. Most of the straggler leaves still clinging to the trees are about to blow off. 

That's because another modest storm is coming along Monday night. Again, typical of November, this one is going by to our northwest. Though the storm isn't a biggie, the jet stream driving it is strong.  That'll push that storm past us very fast, and perhaps mix down some higher speed air from aloft. 

Not all of the region will get a blast of wind out of this, but it should be breezy everywhere Monday night. 

The central and northern Champlain Valley should see gusts over 40 mph Monday night, so it will be rather noisy and bumpy and spooky outside overnight as the wind roars through the now bare trees and slams shed doors and shutters back and forth. 

In the far northern Champlain Valley winds - say up toward St. Albans, Swanton, Alburgh, and other parts of the Islands - winds could gust to 50 mph.  This might prompt a wind advisory because those gusts are strong enough to produce some scattered power outages. 

I don't know anybody in their right mind who would be on top of Mount Mansfield overnight Monday and early Tuesday, but gusts up there should reach 65 mph, says the National Weather Service office in South Burlington. 

Although the gusty winds coming up aren't due to any strong systems, sometimes the storms that roared through the Great Lakes are truly monsters - the famous Gales Of November. Those huge storms also cause very windy weather in Vermont, and throughout the eastern half of the United States.

Big November storms like that are what the song "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald,"  is about. It's the true story sung by Gordon Lightfoot about a ship that sank during a powerful storm in Lake Superior in November, 1975, claiming 29 lives.

Another famous November gale was in 1950, with a powerful storm that moved northeastward more along the Appalachians rather than the Great Lakes.  That storm dumped one to as much as five feet of snow on places like Ohio, western Pennsylvania and West Virginia. 

In the Northeast, that 1950 event is easily one of the worst wind storms in history. Gusts reached 160 mph atop Mount Washington, 110 mph in Concord, New Hampshire, 108 mph in Newark, New Jersey and 94 mph in New York City. 

Here in Vermont, the 1950 storm brought the highest wind gust on record at Burlington, with 72 mph. We did come close to breaking that record last December 23rd with a gust to 71 mph in Burlington. 

Nothing extreme like those storms is on the way anytime soon, so don't expect much drama. But if this November is anything close to normal, expect more hang on to your hat and bump in the night weather pretty frequently over the next few weeks. 

Classic Great Lakes "Gale Of November" Setting Up; These Storms Have Quite A History

Weather map for this Thursday shows a strong 
November storm over the Great Lakes.

Certain weather patterns have a seasonal familiarity.

We're all acquainted with wintertime nor'easters in New England, severe weather outbreaks in the Plains in the springtime, and late summer and autumn hurricanes menacing the Gulf Coast. 

There's another classic weather type this time of year, and that's the big Great Lakes storms.

November is the big month for these intense storms that get going in the Plains and reach peak intensity as the pass northeastward through the Great Lakes.

They get so strong over the lakes in part because the water there is still relatively warm from the summer.  This warm, moist air feeds energy into these storms, much like the much larger bathwater of the Gulf Stream muscle up those winter nor'easters in New England. 

One of those Great Lakes storms is set to blossom later this week. In the grand scheme of things, this one will be far from the most intense you can get, but it'll set off some typical November drama. 

In the Great Lakes, there will be stormy seas and battering waves, so I'm sure shippers will take note.  On the back side of these storms, there's often some pretty good snows.  Parts of the northwestern Great Lakes will get some snow out of this.  

These Great Lakes storms are also often the cause of some severe weather in the Midwest and South, and that seems possible with this late week storm, too.  However, at this point it doesn't look like it will be a big outbreak.

For us in Vermont these Great Lakes storms usually give us a bout of strong, warm southerly winds, a burst of pretty decent rainfall, followed by colder west winds and snow showers.

That seems to be our fate with this one.  After a nice week, we'll get that warm, windy, wet weather on Friday and maybe into Saturday, followed by chillier, snow showery weather late in the weekend. 

As mentioned, this particular storm won't be historic, but just your typical November inclemency. 

Some of these Great Lakes storms in the past are well remembered, though. The most famous one has to be the November, 1975 storm that sank the ship Edmund Fitzgerald in Lake Superior.   OF course you know the song that disaster inspired.

A far worse storm hit the Great Lakes in November, 1913, sinking 19 ships in Lake Huron, killing 247 people. The storm was known as the "White Hurricane" for the blizzard that accompanied it.  Winds gusted to 80 mph during the storm in Cleveland.

In 1940, a storm hit the Pacific Northwest. That one was responsible for the famous "Galloping Gertie" collapse of the Tacoma Narrows Bridge.

Armistice Day Blizzard, November, 1940 in Minnesota.

This storm re-formed in the Midwest and Great Lakes on Armistice Day, November 11 that year. Air ahead of the storm was very mild, which inspired legions of duck hunters to take to the marshes.

The storm's cold front brought a sudden drop in temperatures to well below zero and an intense blizzard. Many of these duck hunters became lost and stranded and died. Three boats sank in Lake Superior, killing 58 mariners. 

The Great Appalachian Storm of 1950 was further east, moving up the west slopes of the Appalachians and into the eastern Great Lakes. That storm produced an intense blizzard and record cold temperatures in parts of the Great Lakes and east. One town in West Virginia saw 62 inches of snow.

To the east of the storm center, those strong south winds typical of these Great Lakes storms grew especially intense. Winds gusted to 108 mph in Newark, New Jersey, 94 mph in New York City and 70 mph up here in Burlington, Vermont.  This storm killed 160 people. 

Another Great Lakes storm in November, 2013 wasn't particularly memorable as a big windstorm on the open waters of the lakes. But it did cause an intense tornado outbreak in and around Illinois that killed three people and injured more than 125 others. 

With this kind of track record for November Great Lakes storms, we can be thankful that the one later this week won't be of that caliber.