Recently, I've looked back at some notable tropical systems with a local connection, with names such as Diane and David. And of course there was Floyd, which, at this time last year, was starting to make East Coast forecasters very nervous. But at the Jersey shore, it was a hurricane in 1944, before tropical systems were named, that is probably the most infamous.

That storm came to be called the Great Atlantic Hurricane of 1944. At 6pm on this date that year, its center was just offshore of Atlantic City. Winds there reached 82 mph out of the north. Nearly all Jersey shore communities suffered heavy damage to roofs and chimneys. Just on Long Beach Island alone, 300 homes were destroyed. Boardwalks in Atlantic City and on Seven Mile Beach, which contains Avalon and Stone Harbor, were literally washed away.

Even inland, the storm brought heavy rains and tropical-storm force winds. Those resulted in agricultural losses estimated at 3.5 million dollars in New Jersey alone.