50th Anniversay of the Edmund Fitzgerald

Today - Nov. 10th, 2025 - marks the 50th anniversary of the sinking of the Edmund Fitzgerald. The Edmund Fitzgerald was a iron ore cargo ship that got caught in a rapidly intensifying mid-latitude cyclone on Nov. 10, 1975,  causing the ship and all of it's 29 crew to sink and perish in Lake Superior. A ship wreck of that size - in a body of water that was not the ocean - was a shock to the nation, and the exact mechanisms for the ships demise are still a mystery to this day. Even a hit folk rock song by Gordon Lightfoot called the "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald" was written in 1976 to encapsulate the unprecedented tragedy. 

The anomalous and mysterious condition's of the Fitzgerald's final voyage holds a large part in the culture, lore, and mystery of the Great Lakes as well as a significant place in meteorological history. In fact, the sinking of the Fitzgerald is so heavily embedded in weather history the majority of college atmospheric science or meteorology programs across the country teach about this event in one course or another.

Edmund Fitzgerald's final voyage (credit: Hultquist, et al. 2006)

There have been many retrospective analyses of the severe storm that sunk the Edmund Fitzgerald. Case studies like those done by Hultquist, et al. "Reexamination of the 9–10 November 1975 “Edmund Fitzgerald Storm Using Today’s Technology" published in the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society provide excellent recaps of the conditions that led to the storm and how we can better simulate these conditions using todays numerical weather prediction. This reexamination, along with other reanalyzes of the storm, have served to improve the science of forecasting mid-latitude cyclones as well as forecasting the rapid intensification of such storms. 

So what made the storm system that sunk the Fitzgerald so strong and so surprising?

Edmund Fitzgerald Reanalysis

The storm that sunk the Fitzgerald originated as a somewhat casual surface low that was located across the southern Great Plains on the morning of Nov. 9. The surface low was associated with an approaching negatively tilted short-wave trough - trough axis tilted SE to NW, indicating strong baroclinicity and warm/cold-air advection - as well as an upper level jet maxima located over the central plains. The Edmund Fitzgerald storm evolution is shown by the NCEP reanalysis fields of 500 mb heights, 1000-500 mb thicknesses, and surface pressure from the morning of Nov. 9 through the evening of Nov. 10, 1975. 

NCEP reanalysis 500 mb heights (color shading), 1000-500 mb thickness (dashed lines), and surface pressure (black lines)

This synoptic environment provided large scale lift via jet maxima divergence and strong surface forcing via frontogenesis that aided in the rapid strengthening of the storm. Over a 12-hr period from the morning to evening of Nov. 9th, the short-wave trough, jet maxima, and surface low lifted to the NE out of the southern plains and over Iowa, intensifying from a central surface pressure of 1000 mb to 993 mb. The storm was still not considered a significant threat at this point, and the Edmund Fitzgerald left port from Superior, WI (west end of Superior) on the evening of Nov. 9th and began it's last voyage eastward to Whitefish Bay (west end of Superior). 

Location of the Fitzgerald (along with other ships) and the center of the surface low Nov. 9-10th, 1975 (credit)

The track of the surface low and Edmund Fitzgerald from the night of Nov. 9th through the evening of Nov. 10th is shown above. Over the course of the night of Nov. 9th to the morning of Nov. 10th, the storm progressed over Lake Superior. The storm intensified further as strong coupled upper-level jet maxima dynamics, frontogenesis, and lake-atmosphere interactions aligned to create optimal conditions for a severe mid-latitude cyclone. The surface pressure of the storm dropped another 11 mb to 982mb by the morning of Nov. 10th and centered over the south-central shore of Lake Superior.

Modeled wind field Nov. 9-10, 1975 (credit: NWS Marquette, MI)

By this point, the rapid pressure decreases and the collision of warm and cold airmasses over the lake made for  exceptionally strong storm that retained it's strength as it moved over central Lake Superior. Coincidently, as the surface low moved northward over the center of Lake Superior on the afternoon of Nov. 10th the Edmund Fitzgerald moved into the same waters. From the afternoon to evening of Nov. 10th, the storm reached peak intensity with significantly strong winds (> 50 mph) and extreme wave heights (> 10 meters or ~30 ft) in the exact location of the Edmund Fitzgerald (near Whitefish Bay). 

Modeled wave height (meters) Nov. 9-10th, 1975 (credit: NWS Marquette, MI)

The cyclonic nature (counter-clockwise rotation) of the wind field and the large fetch - extended distance the winds traveled over the lake surface - created swirling-bathtub like wave conditions that focused directly over the location of the ship. The timing and location of the storm track and ship corresponded in a very unfortunate manner, leading to extreme storm conditions that ultimately led to the Fitzgerald's sinking on the evening of Nov. 10th, 1975. 

To this day, there is still speculation as to the exact mechanism that caused the Fitzgerald to sink. The wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald remains a stark reminder of the power of mother nature and unpredictability of the weather.