Storm days
Hazel, Carolinas to Canada
From our state line to Toronto in a day, Oct 15, 1954.
- Medium
- NOAA storm track, modeled wind, and a 1954 tide gauge record
- Length
- 35 s
- Collection
- Storm days, The Carolina coast
- Posted
- Nov 10, 2026
The story
Hazel comes up past the Bahamas and comes ashore at the North Carolina and South Carolina line on the morning of Friday, Oct 15, 1954, as a Category 4. Then it runs north so fast that by that night its center is over Toronto. Less than 15 hours after landfall it was over Ontario.
The chart at the bottom is Wilmington's tide gauge, which was running in 1954. Around noon the river at Wilmington stood about 8 feet, 2.6 feet above the tide. The beaches near the state line got far worse, but there is no gauge record from there.
What you're seeing
- The swirl's size is an estimate; wind fields weren't measured in 1954.
- Times are Eastern Standard Time, which NC kept in October 1954.
Data
Have an interesting day.