Waves from weekend nor’easter cause damage in Caribbean

Image: Craig F. Walker/The Boston Globe via Getty Images

This weekend’s storm reserved its full might for southern New England, where winds gusted to 93 miles per hour and coastal flooding occurred for at least five tide cycles. But the nor’easter that struck Washington, D.C., New York, Providence, and Boston has churned up so much real estate across the Atlantic Ocean that high waves are causing damage in Puerto Rico and the Leeward Islands. 

The storm’s footprint, in the form of high waves, is unusually expansive, extending all the way southward to the Caribbean and even northern South America. Swells generated by the storm’s vast wind field now occupy at least half of the North Atlantic, according to maps provided by the U.S. Ocean Prediction Center, which is part of the National Weather Service. 

John Morales, chief meteorologist at NBC 6 in Miami, who was born in Puerto Rico, has been tweeting images of the damage there caused by ocean swells of 15 to 20 feet that were generated by the meteorological “bomb” that hit New England and is still spinning out over the open ocean. 

The Ocean Prediction Center’s forecasts show waves that were originally generated by the nor’easter will extend across the Atlantic within the next two days. 

The likely result would not be damaging flooding, however, since the wave heights are diminishing so far from the storm.

Image: ocean prediction center

The high waves did considerable damage in eastern Massachusetts, with astonishing scenes of waves towering over homes, and breaking through shoreline barriers. 

It was one of the most destructive and longest-lasting coastal flood events in Massachusetts history, coming in as a top 3 tide level in Boston Harbor, for example. 

Towns including Scituate, Marblehead, Quincy, and Gloucester were particularly hard hit, as was the island of Nantucket. 

The flooding was made worse by astronomical high tides and long-term sea level rise, which is making once rare coastal flood events more likely with each passing year.