New York (state)
New York is a state in the Northeastern United States. New York was one of the original thirteen colonies. With an estimated 19.54 million residents in 2018, it is the fourth most populous state. To distinguish the state from the city with the same name, it is sometimes called New York State; the state's most populous city, New York City, makes up over 40% of the state's population. Two-thirds of the state's population lives in the New York metropolitan area, nearly 40% lives on Long Island; the state and city were both named for the 17th century Duke of York, the future King James II of England. With an estimated population of 8.62 million in 2017, New York City is the most populous city in the United States and the premier gateway for legal immigration to the United States. The New York metropolitan area is one of the most populous in the world. New York City is a global city, home to the United Nations Headquarters and has been described as the cultural and media capital of the world, as well as the world's most economically powerful city.
The next four most populous cities in the state are Buffalo, Rochester and Syracuse, while the state capital is Albany. The 27th largest U. S. state in land area, New York has a diverse geography. The state is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south and Connecticut and Vermont to the east; the state has a maritime border with Rhode Island, east of Long Island, as well as an international border with the Canadian provinces of Quebec to the north and Ontario to the northwest. The southern part of the state is in the Atlantic coastal plain and includes Long Island and several smaller associated islands, as well as New York City and the lower Hudson River Valley; the large Upstate New York region comprises several ranges of the wider Appalachian Mountains, the Adirondack Mountains in the Northeastern lobe of the state. Two major river valleys – the north-south Hudson River Valley and the east-west Mohawk River Valley – bisect these more mountainous regions. Western New York is considered part of the Great Lakes region and borders Lake Ontario, Lake Erie, Niagara Falls.
The central part of the state is dominated by the Finger Lakes, a popular vacation and tourist destination. New York had been inhabited by tribes of Algonquian and Iroquoian-speaking Native Americans for several hundred years by the time the earliest Europeans came to New York. French colonists and Jesuit missionaries arrived southward from Montreal for trade and proselytizing. In 1609, the region was visited by Henry Hudson sailing for the Dutch East India Company; the Dutch built Fort Nassau in 1614 at the confluence of the Hudson and Mohawk rivers, where the present-day capital of Albany developed. The Dutch soon settled New Amsterdam and parts of the Hudson Valley, establishing the multicultural colony of New Netherland, a center of trade and immigration. England seized the colony from the Dutch in 1664. During the American Revolutionary War, a group of colonists of the Province of New York attempted to take control of the British colony and succeeded in establishing independence. In the 19th century, New York's development of access to the interior beginning with the Erie Canal, gave it incomparable advantages over other regions of the U.
S. built its political and cultural ascendancy. Many landmarks in New York are well known, including four of the world's ten most-visited tourist attractions in 2013: Times Square, Central Park, Niagara Falls, Grand Central Terminal. New York is home to the Statue of Liberty, a symbol of the United States and its ideals of freedom and opportunity. In the 21st century, New York has emerged as a global node of creativity and entrepreneurship, social tolerance, environmental sustainability. New York's higher education network comprises 200 colleges and universities, including Columbia University, Cornell University, New York University, the United States Military Academy, the United States Merchant Marine Academy, University of Rochester, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Rockefeller University, which have been ranked among the top 40 in the nation and world; the tribes in what is now New York were predominantly Algonquian. Long Island was divided in half between the Wampanoag and Lenape; the Lenape controlled most of the region surrounding New York Harbor.
North of the Lenape was the Mohicans. Starting north of them, from east to west, were three Iroquoian nations: the Mohawk, the original Iroquois and the Petun. South of them, divided along Appalachia, were the Susquehannock and the Erie. Many of the Wampanoag and Mohican peoples were caught up in King Philip's War, a joint effort of many New England tribes to push Europeans off their land. After the death of their leader, Chief Philip Metacomet, most of those peoples fled inland, splitting into the Abenaki and the Schaghticoke. Many of the Mohicans remained in the region until the 1800s, however, a small group known as the Ouabano migrated southwest into West Virginia at an earlier time, they may have merged with the Shawnee. The Mohawk and Susquehannock were the most militaristic. Trying to corner trade with the Europeans, they targeted other tribes; the Mohawk were known for refusing white settlement on their land and banishing any of their people who converted to Christianity. They posed a major threat to the Abenaki and Mohicans, while the Susquehannock conquered the Lenape in the 1600s.
The most devastating event of the century, was the Beaver Wars. From 1640–1680, Iroquoian peoples waged campaigns which extended from modern-day Michigan to Virginia against Algonquian and Siouan tribes, as well as each other; the ai
United States Army Corps of Engineers
The United States Army Corps of Engineers is a U. S. federal agency under the Department of Defense and a major Army command made up of some 37,000 civilian and military personnel, making it one of the world's largest public engineering and construction management agencies. Although associated with dams and flood protection in the United States, USACE is involved in a wide range of public works throughout the world; the Corps of Engineers provides outdoor recreation opportunities to the public, provides 24% of U. S. hydropower capacity. The corps' mission is to "Deliver vital military engineering services. Other civil engineering projects include flood control, beach nourishment, dredging for waterway navigation. Design and construction of flood protection systems through various federal mandates. Design and construction management of military facilities for the Army, Air Force, Army Reserve and Air Force Reserve and other Defense and Federal agencies. Environmental regulation and ecosystem restoration.
The history of United States Army Corps of Engineers can be traced back to 16 June 1775, when the Continental Congress organized an army with a chief engineer and two assistants. Colonel Richard Gridley became General George Washington's first chief engineer. One of his first tasks was to build fortifications near Boston at Bunker Hill; the Continental Congress recognized the need for engineers trained in military fortifications and asked the government of King Louis XVI of France for assistance. Many of the early engineers in the Continental Army were former French officers. Louis Lebègue Duportail, a lieutenant colonel in the French Royal Corps of Engineers, was secretly sent to America in March 1777 to serve in Washington's Continental Army. In July 1777 he was appointed colonel and commander of all engineers in the Continental Army, in November 17, 1777, he was promoted to brigadier general; when the Continental Congress created a separate Corps of Engineers in May 1779 Duportail was designated as its commander.
In late 1781 he directed the construction of the allied U. S.-French siege works at the Battle of Yorktown. From 1794 to 1802 the engineers were combined with the artillery as the Corps of Artillerists and Engineers; the Corps of Engineers, as it is known today, came into existence on 16 March 1802, when President Thomas Jefferson signed the Military Peace Establishment Act whose aim was to "organize and establish a Corps of Engineers... that the said Corps... shall be stationed at West Point in the State of New York and shall constitute a military academy." Until 1866, the superintendent of the United States Military Academy was always an officer of engineer. The General Survey Act of 1824 authorized the use of Army engineers to survey canal routes; that same year, Congress passed an "Act to Improve the Navigation of the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers" and to remove sand bars on the Ohio and "planters, sawyers, or snags" on the Mississippi, for which the Corps of Engineers was the responsible agency.
Separately authorized on 4 July 1838, the U. S. Army Corps of Topographical Engineers consisted only of officers and was used for mapping and the design and construction of federal civil works and other coastal fortifications and navigational routes, it was merged with the Corps of Engineers on 31 March 1863, at which point the Corps of Engineers assumed the Lakes Survey District mission for the Great Lakes. In 1841, Congress created the Lake Survey; the survey, based in Detroit, Mich. was charged with conducting a hydrographical survey of the Northern and Northwestern Lakes and preparing and publishing nautical charts and other navigation aids. The Lake Survey published its first charts in 1852. In the mid-19th century, Corps of Engineers' officers ran Lighthouse Districts in tandem with U. S. Naval officers; the Army Corps of Engineers played a significant role in the American Civil War. Many of the men who would serve in the top leadership in this institution were West Point graduates who rose to military fame and power during the Civil War.
Some of these men were Union Generals George McClellan, Henry Halleck, George Meade, Confederate generals Robert E. Lee, Joseph Johnston, P. G. T. Beauregard; the versatility of officers in the Army Corps of Engineers contributed to the success of numerous missions throughout the Civil War. They were responsible for building pontoon and railroad bridges and batteries, the destruction of enemy supply lines, the construction of roads; the Union forces were not the only ones to employ the use of engineers throughout the war, on 6 March 1861, once the South had seceded from the Union, among the different acts passed at the time, a provision was included that called for the creation of a Confederate Corps of Engineers. The progression of the war demonstrated the South's disadvantage in engineering expertise. To overcome this obstacle, the Confederate Congress passed legislation that gave a company of engineers to every division in the field. One of the main projects for the Army Corps of Engineers was constructing railroads and bridges, which Union forces took advantage of because railroads and bridges provided access to resources and industry.
One area where the Confederate engineers were able to outperform the Union Army was in the ability to build fortification
Per capita income
Per capita income or average income measures the average income earned per person in a given area in a specified year. It is calculated by dividing the area's total income by its total population. Per capita income is national income divided by population size. Per capita income is used to measure an area's average income and compare the wealth of different populations. Per capita income is used to measure a country's standard of living, it is expressed in terms of a used international currency such as the euro or United States dollar, is useful because it is known, is calculable from available gross domestic product and population estimates, produces a useful statistic for comparison of wealth between sovereign territories. This helps to ascertain a country's development status, it is one of the three measures for calculating the Human Development Index of a country. In the United States, it is defined by the U. S. Census Bureau as the following: "Per capita income is the mean money income received in the past 12 months computed for every man and child in a geographic area."
Critics claim that per capita income has several weaknesses in measuring prosperity: Comparisons of per capita income over time need to consider inflation. Without adjusting for inflation, figures tend to overstate the effects of economic growth. International comparisons can be distorted by cost of living differences not reflected in exchange rates. Where the objective is to compare living standards between countries, adjusting for differences in purchasing power parity will more reflect what people are able to buy with their money, it does not reflect income distribution. If a country's income distribution is skewed, a small wealthy class can increase per capita income while the majority of the population has no change in income. In this respect, median income is more useful when measuring of prosperity than per capita income, as it is less influenced by outliers. Non-monetary activity, such as barter or services provided within the family, is not counted; the importance of these services varies among economies.
Per capita income does not consider whether income is invested in factors to improve the area's development, such as health, education, or infrastructure. List of countries by average wage List of countries by GDP per capita—GDP at market or government official exchange rates per inhabitant List of countries by GDP per capita—GDP calculated at purchasing power parity exchange per inhabitant List of countries by GNI per capita List of countries by GNI per capita List of countries by income equality Total personal income
United States Geological Survey
The United States Geological Survey is a scientific agency of the United States government. The scientists of the USGS study the landscape of the United States, its natural resources, the natural hazards that threaten it; the organization has four major science disciplines, concerning biology, geography and hydrology. The USGS is a fact-finding research organization with no regulatory responsibility; the USGS is a bureau of the United States Department of the Interior. The USGS employs 8,670 people and is headquartered in Reston, Virginia; the USGS has major offices near Lakewood, Colorado, at the Denver Federal Center, Menlo Park, California. The current motto of the USGS, in use since August 1997, is "science for a changing world." The agency's previous slogan, adopted on the occasion of its hundredth anniversary, was "Earth Science in the Public Service." Since 2012, the USGS science focus is directed at six topical "Mission Areas", namely Climate and Land Use Change, Core Science Systems, Ecosystems and Minerals and Environmental Health, Natural Hazards, Water.
In December 2012, the USGS split the Energy and Minerals and Environmental Health Mission Area resulting in seven topical Mission Areas, with the two new areas being: Energy and Minerals and Environmental Health. Administratively, it is divided into six Regional Units. Other specific programs include: Earthquake Hazards Program monitors earthquake activity worldwide; the National Earthquake Information Center in Golden, Colorado on the campus of the Colorado School of Mines detects the location and magnitude of global earthquakes. The USGS runs or supports several regional monitoring networks in the United States under the umbrella of the Advanced National Seismic System; the USGS informs authorities, emergency responders, the media, the public, both domestic and worldwide, about significant earthquakes. It maintains long-term archives of earthquake data for scientific and engineering research, it conducts and supports research on long-term seismic hazards. USGS has released the UCERF California earthquake forecast.
As of 2005, the agency is working to create a National Volcano Early Warning System by improving the instrumentation monitoring the 169 volcanoes in U. S. territory and by establishing methods for measuring the relative threats posed at each site. The USGS National Geomagnetism Program monitors the magnetic field at magnetic observatories and distributes magnetometer data in real time; the USGS collaborates with Canadian and Mexican government scientists, along with the Commission for Environmental Cooperation, to produce the North American Environmental Atlas, used to depict and track environmental issues for a continental perspective. The USGS operates the streamgaging network for the United States, with over 7400 streamgages. Real-time streamflow data are available online. National Climate Change and Wildlife Science Center implements partner-driven science to improve understanding of past and present land use change, develops relevant climate and land use forecasts, identifies lands and communities that are most vulnerable to adverse impacts of change from the local to global scale.
Since 1962, the Astrogeology Research Program has been involved in global and planetary exploration and mapping. In collaboration with Stanford University, the USGS operates the USGS-Stanford Ion Microprobe Laboratory, a world-class analytical facility for U--Pb geochronology and trace element analyses of minerals and other earth materials. USGS operates a number of water related programs, notably the National Streamflow Information Program and National Water-Quality Assessment Program. USGS Water data is publicly available from their National Water Information System database; the USGS operates the National Wildlife Health Center, whose mission is "to serve the nation and its natural resources by providing sound science and technical support, to disseminate information to promote science-based decisions affecting wildlife and ecosystem health. The NWHC provides information, technical assistance, research and leadership on national and international wildlife health issues." It is the agency responsible for surveillance of H5N1 avian influenza outbreaks in the United States.
The USGS runs 17 biological research centers in the United States, including the Patuxent Wildlife Research Center. The USGS is investigating collaboration with the social networking site Twitter to allow for more rapid construction of ShakeMaps; the USGS produces several national series of topographic maps which vary in scale and extent, with some wide gaps in coverage, notably the complete absence of 1:50,000 scale topographic maps or their equivalent. The largest and best-known topographic series is the 7.5-minute, 1:24,000 scale, quadrangle, a non-metric scale unique to the United States. Each of these maps covers an area bounded by two lines of latitude and two lines of longitude spaced 7.5 minutes apart. Nearly 57,000 individual maps in this series cover the 48 contiguous states, Hawaii, U. S. territories, areas of Alaska near Anchorage and Prudhoe Bay. The area covered by each map varies with the latitude of its represented location due to convergence of the meridians. At lower latitudes, near 30° north, a 7.5-minute quadrangle contains an area of about 64 square miles.
At 49° north latitude, 49 square miles are contained within a quadrangle of that size. As a unique non-metric map scale, the 1:24,000 scale requires a separate and specialized romer scale for pl
1938 New England hurricane
The 1938 New England Hurricane was one of the deadliest and most destructive tropical cyclones to strike Long Island, New York, New England. The storm formed near the coast of Africa on September 9, becoming a Category 5 hurricane on the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Scale, before making landfall as a Category 3 hurricane on Long Island on September 21, it is estimated that the hurricane killed 682 people, damaged or destroyed more than 57,000 homes, caused property losses estimated at $306 million. Damaged trees and buildings were still seen in the affected areas as late as 1951, it remains the most powerful and deadliest hurricane in recorded New England history eclipsed in landfall intensity only by the Great Colonial Hurricane of 1635. The storm was first analyzed by ship data south of the Cape Verde Islands on September 9. Over the next 10 days, it gathered strength and tracked to the west-northwest, it veered northward in response to a deep trough over Appalachia, sparing the Bahamas, the Carolinas, the Mid-Atlantic states.
At the same time, a high pressure system was centered north of Bermuda, preventing the hurricane from making an eastward turn out to sea. Thus, the hurricane was squeezed to the north between the two weather systems; this caused the storm's forward speed to increase late on September 20. This extreme forward motion was in the same general direction as the winds on the eastern side of the storm as it proceeded north; the storm was centered several hundred miles to the southeast of Cape Hatteras during the early hours of September 21, it weakened slightly. By 8:30 am EDT, it was centered 100 miles due east of Cape Hatteras, its forward speed had increased to well over 50 mph; this rapid movement did not permit enough time for the storm to weaken over the cooler waters before it reached Long Island. The hurricane sped through the Virginia tidewater during the 9:00 am hour. Between 12:00 pm and 2:00 pm, the New Jersey coastline and New York City caught the western edge. At the same time, weather conditions began to deteriorate on Long Island and along the southern New England coast.
The hurricane made landfall at Bellport on Long Island's Suffolk County sometime between 2:10 pm and 2:40 pm as a Category 3 hurricane, with sustained winds of 120 mph. It made a second landfall as a Category 3 hurricane somewhere between Bridgeport and New Haven, Connecticut at around 4:00 pm, with sustained winds of 115 mph; the storm's eye moved into western Massachusetts by 5:00 pm, it reached Vermont by 6:00 pm. Both Westfield and Dorset, Vermont reported calm conditions and partial clearing during passage of the eye, a rather unusual occurrence for a New England hurricane; the hurricane began to lose tropical characteristics as it continued into northern Vermont, though it was still carrying hurricane-force winds. It crossed into Quebec at 10:00 pm, transitioning into a post-tropical low; the post-tropical remnants dissipated over northern Ontario a few days later. In 1938, United States forecasting lagged behind forecasting in Europe, where new techniques were being used to analyze air masses, taking into account the influence of fronts.
A confidential report was released by the United States Forest Service, the parent agency of the United States Weather Bureau. It described the weather bureau's forecasting as "a sorry state of affairs" where forecasters had poor training and systematic planning was not used, where forecasters had to "scrape by" to get information wherever they could; the Jacksonville, office of the weather bureau issued a warning on September 19 that a hurricane might hit Florida. Residents and authorities made extensive preparations, as they had endured the Labor Day Hurricane three years earlier; when the storm turned north, the office issued warnings for the Carolina coast and transferred authority to the bureau's headquarters in Washington. At 9:00 am EDT on September 21, the Washington office issued northeast storm warnings north of Atlantic City and south of Block Island, Rhode Island, southeast storm warnings from Block Island to Eastport, Maine; the advisory, underestimated the storm's intensity and said that it was farther south than it was.
The office had yet to forward any information about the hurricane to the New York City office. At 10:00 am EDT, the bureau downgraded the hurricane to a tropical storm; the 11:30 am advisory mentioned gale-force winds but nothing about hurricane. That day, 28 year-old rookie Charles Pierce was standing in for two veteran meteorologists, he concluded that the storm would be squeezed between a high-pressure area located to the west and a high-pressure area to the east, that it would be forced to ride up a trough of low pressure into New England. A noon meeting was called and Pierce presented his conclusion, but he was overruled by "celebrated" chief forecaster Charles Mitchell and his senior staff. In Boston, meteorologist E. B. Rideout told his WEEI radio listeners. At 2:00 pm, hurricane-force gusts were occurring on Long Island's South Shore and near hurricane-force gusts on the coast of Connecticut; the Washington office issued an advisory saying that the storm was 75 mi east-southeast of Atlantic City and would pass over Long Island and Connect
1991 Perfect Storm
The 1991 Perfect Storm known as The No-Name Storm and the Halloween Gale/Storm, was a nor'easter that absorbed Hurricane Grace and evolved back into a small unnamed hurricane late in its life cycle. The initial area of low pressure developed off Atlantic Canada on October 29. Forced southward by a ridge to its north, it reached its peak intensity as a large and powerful cyclone; the storm lashed the east coast of the United States with high waves and coastal flooding before turning to the southwest and weakening. Moving over warmer waters, the system transitioned into a subtropical cyclone before becoming a tropical storm, it turned toward the northeast. On November 1, the system evolved into a full-fledged hurricane, with peak sustained winds of 75 miles per hour, although the National Hurricane Center left it unnamed to avoid confusion amid media interest in the precursor extratropical storm, it received the name "the Perfect Storm" after a conversation between Boston National Weather Service forecaster Robert Case and author Sebastian Junger.
The system was the twelfth and final tropical cyclone, the eighth tropical storm, fourth hurricane in the 1991 Atlantic hurricane season. The tropical system weakened. Damage from the storm totaled over $200 million and the death toll was thirteen. Most of the damage occurred while the storm was extratropical, after waves up to 30 feet struck the coastline from Canada to Florida and southeastward to Puerto Rico. In Massachusetts, where damage was heaviest, over 100 homes were destroyed or damaged. To the north, more than 100 homes were affected in Maine, including the vacation home of then-President George H. W. Bush. More than 38,000 people were left without power, along the coast high waves inundated roads and buildings. In portions of New England, the damage was worse than that caused by Hurricane Bob two months earlier. Aside from tidal flooding along rivers, the storm's effects were concentrated along the coast. A buoy off the coast of Nova Scotia reported a wave height of 100.7 feet, the highest recorded in the province's offshore waters.
In the middle of the storm, the fishing vessel Andrea Gail sank, killing her crew of six and inspiring the book, movie, The Perfect Storm. Off the shore of New York's Long Island, an Air National Guard helicopter ran out of fuel and crashed. Two people died. High waves swept two people to their deaths, one in Rhode Island and one in Puerto Rico, another person was blown off a bridge to his death; the tropical cyclone that formed late in the storm's duration caused little impact, limited to power outages and slick roads. The Perfect Storm originated from a cold front. On October 28, the front spawned an extratropical low to the east of Nova Scotia. Around that time, a ridge extended from the Appalachian Mountains northeastward to Greenland, with a strong high pressure center over eastern Canada; the blocking ridge forced the extratropical low to track toward the southeast and to the west. Hurricane Grace was swept aloft by its cold front into the warm conveyor belt circulation of the deep cyclone on October 29.
The cyclone strengthened as a result of the temperature contrast between the cold air to the northwest and the warmth and humidity from the remnants of Hurricane Grace. The low pressure system continued deepening, it had an unusual retrograde motion for a nor'easter, beginning a set of meteorological circumstances that occur only once every 50 to 100 years. Most nor'easters affect New England from the southwest. While situated about 390 miles south of Halifax, Nova Scotia, the storm attained its peak intensity with winds of up to 70 mph; the nor'easter reached peak intensity at 12:00 UTC on October 30 with its lowest pressure of 972 millibars. The interaction between the extratropical storm and the high pressure system to its north created a significant pressure gradient, which created large waves and strong winds. Between the southern New England coast and the storm's center, the gradient was 70 mbar. A buoy located 264 miles south of Halifax reported a wave height of 100.7 feet on October 30.
This became the highest recorded wave height on the Scotian Shelf, the oceanic shelf off the coast of Nova Scotia. East of Cape Cod, a NOAA buoy located at 41.1°N 66.6°W / 41.1. Another buoy, located at 40.5°N 69.5°W / 40.5. Upon peaking in intensity, the nor'easter turned southward and weakened; the low moved over warm waters of the Gulf Stream, where bands of convection around the center began to organize. Around this time, the system attained subtropical characteristics. On November 1, while the storm was moving in a counter-clockwise loop, a tropical cyclone had been identified at the center of the larger low. (Although these conditions are rare, Hurricane Karl during 1980 formed
Nor'easter
A nor'easter is a macro-scale extratropical cyclone in the western North Atlantic ocean. The name derives from the direction of the strongest winds that will be hitting an eastern seaboard of the northern hemisphere: as a cyclonic air mass rotates counterclockwise, winds tend to blow northeast-to-southwest over the region covered by the northwest quadrant of the cyclone. Use of the term in North America is associated with storms that impact the north Atlantic areas of the United States, in the Atlantic Provinces of Canada; such storms originate as a low-pressure area that forms within 100 miles of the shore between North Carolina and Massachusetts. The precipitation pattern is similar to that of other extratropical storms. Nor'easters are accompanied by heavy rain or snow, can cause severe coastal flooding, coastal erosion, hurricane-force winds, or blizzard conditions. Nor'easters are most intense during winter in New England and Atlantic Canada, they thrive on converging air masses—the cold polar air mass and the warmer air over the water—and are more severe in winter when the difference in temperature between these air masses is greater.
Nor'easters tend to develop most and most powerfully between the months of November and March, although they can develop during other parts of the year as well. The susceptible regions are impacted by nor'easters a few times each winter; the term nor'easter came to American English by way of British English. The earliest recorded uses of the contraction nor in combinations such as nor'-east and nor-nor-west, as reported by the Oxford English Dictionary, date to the late 16th century, as in John Davis's 1594 The Seaman's Secrets: "Noreast by North raiseth a degree in sayling 24 leagues." The spelling appears, for instance, on a compass card published in 1607. Thus, the manner of pronouncing from memory the 32 points of the compass, known in maritime training as "boxing the compass", is described by Ansted with pronunciations "Nor'east," "Nor' Nor'-east," "Nor'east b' east," and so forth. According to the OED, the first recorded use of the term "nor'easter" occurs in 1836 in a translation of Aristophanes.
The term "nor'easter" developed from the historical spellings and pronunciations of the compass points and the direction of wind or sailing. As noted in a January 2006 editorial by William Sisson, editor of Soundings magazine, use of "nor'easter" to describe the storm system is common along the U. S. East Coast, yet it has been asserted by linguist Mark Liberman that "nor'easter" as a contraction for "northeaster" has no basis in regional New England dialect. He describes nor'easter as a "fake" word. However, this view neglects the little-known etymology and the historical maritime usage described above. 19th-century Downeast mariners pronounced the compass point "north northeast" as "no'nuth-east", so on. For decades, Edgar Comee, of Brunswick, waged a determined battle against use of the term "nor'easter" by the press, which usage he considered "a pretentious and altogether lamentable affectation" and "the odious loathsome, practice of landlubbers who would be seen as salty as the sea itself".
His efforts, which included mailing hundreds of postcards, were profiled, just before his death at the age of 88, in The New Yorker. Despite the efforts of Comee and others, use of the term continues by the press. According to Boston Globe writer Jan Freeman, "from 1975 to 1980, journalists used the nor’easter spelling only once in five mentions of such storms. University of Pennsylvania linguistics professor Mark Liberman has pointed out that while the Oxford English Dictionary cites examples dating back to 1837, these examples represent the contributions of a handful of non-New England poets and writers. Liberman posits that "nor'easter" may have been a literary affectation, akin to "e'en" for "even" and "th'only" for "the only", an indication in spelling that two syllables count for only one position in metered verse, with no implications for actual pronunciation. However, despite these assertions, the term can be found in the writings of New Englanders, was used by the press in the 19th century.
The Hartford Times reported on a storm striking New York in December 1839, observed, "We Yankees had a share of this same "noreaster," but it was quite moderate in comparison to the one of the 15h inst." Thomas Bailey Aldrich, in his semi-autobiographical work The Story of a Bad Boy, wrote "We had had several slight flurries of hail and snow before, but this was a regular nor'easter". In her story "In the Gray Goth" Elizabeth Stuart Phelps Ward wrote "...and there was snow in the sky now, setting in for a regular nor'easter". John H. Tice, in A new system of meteorology, designed for schools and private students, wrote "During this battle, the dreaded and destructive Northeaster rages over the New England, the Middle States, southward. No nor'easter occurs except when there is a high barometer headed off and driven down upon Nova Scotia and Lower Canada."Usage existed into the 20th century in the form of: Current event description, as the Publication Committee of the New York Charity Organization Society wrote in Charities and the commons: a weekly journal of philanthropy and social advance, Volume 19: "In spite of a heavy "nor'easter," the worst that has visited the New England coast in years, the hall was crowded."
Historical reference, as used by Mary Rogers Bangs in Old Cape Cod: "In December of 1778, the Federal brig General Arnold, Magee
