Chesapeake–Potomac Hurricane Landfall

Date: August 23, 1933 • Location: Buxton, United States

The Chesapeake–Potomac hurricane made landfall in the Outer Banks of North Carolina and went on to cause at least 47 deaths in the U.S. Mid-Atlantic region. The 1933 Chesapeake–Potomac hurricane was among the most damaging hurricanes in the Mid-Atlantic states in the eastern United States. The sixth storm and third hurricane of the very active 1933 Atlantic hurricane season, it formed in the eastern Atlantic, where it moved west-northwestward and eventually became a Category 4 on the Saffir-Simpson hurricane wind scale. A strong ridge over New England allowed a continued northwest course, bringing the storm south of Bermuda and later toward the middle coast of the eastern United States. Advanced warning allowed hundreds of people to evacuate ahead of the hurricane making landfall. It did so in northeastern North Carolina on August 23 with winds of about 90 mph (140 km/h). Soon after, the eye crossed over Norfolk, Virginia, the first time that happened since 1821. The hurricane weakened into a tropical storm over northern Virginia shortly before passing near Washington, D.C., becoming the worst tropical cyclone there since 1896.