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Hurricane Watch

A cross-section of a marsh at Barn Island, Conn., shows light-colored layers of sand laid down by Hurricane Carol in 1954 (at 10 centimeters) and the 1938 Hurricane (at 14 centimeters), both of which devastated the New England coast. WHOI coastal geologists, including Jeff Donnelly, have spent the past decade using such observations to build extensive records of land-falling hurricanes and cyclones along the eastern United States, the Caribbean, and Japan. Hurricane season in North America officially starts today.
(Photo by Jeff Donnelly, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution)