March is still well before the Atlantic hurricane season, but there was once a storm that not only formed, but hammered parts of the Caribbean.
On March 6, 1908, 118 years ago today, a tropical storm formed just over 500 miles northeast of San Juan, Puerto Rico.
Decades before satellites, histories of tropical cyclones in the Atlantic Basin were pieced together from either ship reports or land areas already impacted. As best as those records indicate, that tropical storm became a hurricane later that evening.
This March oddball then tracked south-southwest, intensifying to Category 2 strength as it tracked over the northern Leeward Islands of Saint Kitts and Nevis.
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"We of the islands in and around the northeastern corner of the Caribbean Sea were surprised to experience weather of so boisterous a character that it reminded us of what sometimes takes place in the regular hurricane season," wrote John T. Quin from St. Croix in theMay 1908 journal Monthly Weather Review.
One sailboat broke from its anchor in St. Eustatius and was found "abandoned and stripped of mast and sails" off the southeast coast of Puerto Rico almost two weeks after the storm, according to Quin's report.
Buildings were damaged in Saint Barthélemy, including a church. Tents housing peasants were damaged in Saint Martin/Sint Maarten, along with heavy damage to the local cotton crop. Up to 8 inches of rain was reported in St. Kitts.
This remains the only March tropical storm or hurricane of record in the Atlantic Basin.
Jonathan Erdman is a senior meteorologist at weather.com and has been covering national and international weather since 1996. Extreme and bizarre weather are his favorite topics. Reach out to him onBluesky,X (formerly Twitter)andFacebook.
