Isaac's Storm: A Man, a Time, and the Deadliest Hurricane in History

by Erik Larson

Isaac, in his 1891 talk to the Galveston YMCA, gave a cruelly detailed explanation of the Coriolis effect. The crowd listened with iron concentration. “… At latitude 30 degrees the velocity of the earth eastward is 897 miles per hour, and at 45 degrees it is 732 miles per hour, or 165 miles less. Now, if a mass of air in a quiescent state were transferred instantly from the thirtieth parallel to the forty-fifth parallel it would be found to have a relative motion eastward of 165 miles per hour greater than that of the parallel arrived at, and if it had been transferred from 45 degrees to 30 degrees, with the motion which it had at 45, it would be 165 miles slower than the earth at the thirtieth parallel, and this would give a relative velocity westward of 165 miles per hour.” A twentieth-century audience would have shot Isaac dead.