
The Perfect Storm of 1991: The Story of the Nor'easter that Sank the Andrea Gail
Failed to add items
Add to Cart failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Adding to library failed
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
$0.99/mo for the first 3 months

Buy for $6.95
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
-
Narrated by:
-
Diane Lehman
About this listen
"The technical name for the new storm was a 'midlatitude cyclone.' The people in its path, however, would later call it the No Name Hurricane, since it had all the force of a hurricane, but was never officially designated as one. And because the brunt of the storm would strike the Eastern Seaboard around October 31, it would also acquire another name: the Halloween Gale." (Sebastian Junger, author of The Perfect Storm)
People in the Northeastern United States have been dealing with winter storms for centuries, and people in the South and on the East Coast have dealt with hurricanes and tropical storms for just as long, but it's rare for the weather systems that produce such storms to actually collide with each other and produce a more powerful storm. In fact it's unusual enough that when it happened in late October 1991, one weatherman dubbed it the "perfect storm".
Indeed, the perfect storm of 1991 was unique in many respects. By feeding off of Hurricane Grace and another storm to the south, the nor'easter that was hitting the Northeast and Canada became an incredibly powerful storm that struck the North Atlantic before swinging back south and again developing into a tropical storm. In the process it produced waves in excess of 100 feet near Nova Scotia and caused substantial flooding across the East Coast. It was also responsible for a handful of deaths throughout the region.
The storm may have been one of those that residents in the area would remember and talk about in comparison to subsequent storms, but the perfect storm is well-known across the country thanks to Sebastian Junger's book, The Perfect Storm.
©2012 Charles River Editors (P)2015 Charles River EditorsListeners also enjoyed...
-
The Perfect Storm
- A True Story of Men Against the Sea
- By: Sebastian Junger
- Narrated by: Richard Davidson
- Length: 9 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Man’s struggle against the sea is a theme that has created some of the world’s most exciting stories. Now, in the tradition of Moby Dick comes a New York Times best seller destined to become a modern classic. Written by journalist Sebastian Junger, The Perfect Storm combines an intimate portrait of a small fishing crew with fascinating scientific data about boats and weather systems.
-
-
Best as a Listen
- By Cynthia on 01-28-15
By: Sebastian Junger
-
The Galveston Hurricane of 1900
- The Deadliest Natural Disaster in American History
- By: Charles River Editors
- Narrated by: Steve Rausch
- Length: 1 hr and 7 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The hurricane that struck Galveston, Texas, on September 8, 1900, killed between 6,000 and 12,000 people. Prior to advanced communications, few people knew about impending hurricanes except those closest to the site. In the days before television or even radio, catastrophic descriptions were merely recorded on paper, limiting our understanding of the immediate impact. Thus it was inevitable that the category 4 hurricane would cause almost inconceivable destruction.
-
-
The Hurricane
- By scott massey on 06-14-24
-
The Sinking of the Edmund Fitzgerald
- The Loss of the Largest Ship on the Great Lakes
- By: Charles River Editors
- Narrated by: Scott Clem
- Length: 1 hr and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Great Lakes have claimed countless thousands of vessels over the course of history, but its biggest and most famous victim was the SS Edmund Fitzgerald, the largest ship of its day to sail the Great Lakes and still the largest to lie below Lake Superior's murky depths. The giant ore freighter was intentionally built "within a foot of the maximum length allowed for passage through the soon-to-be completed Saint Lawrence Seaway."
-
-
A waste of money
- By Brutus the All Knowing on 04-13-17
-
Ten Hours Until Dawn
- The True Story of Heroism and Tragedy Aboard the Can Do
- By: Michael J. Tougias
- Narrated by: Joe Barrett
- Length: 10 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
During the height of the blizzard of 1978, the tanker Global Hope floundered on the shoals off the Massachusetts coast. The Coast Guard dispatched a patrol boat, but was soon in as much trouble as the tanker. Then pilot boat captain Frank Quirk, hearing of the Coast Guard's troubles on his radio, decided to act.
-
-
A riveting story
- By Christopher on 11-30-07
-
Isaac's Storm
- A Man, a Time, and the Deadliest Hurricane in History
- By: Erik Larson
- Narrated by: Richard Davidson
- Length: 8 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
At the dawn of the 20th century, a great confidence suffused America. Isaac Cline was one of the era's new men, a scientist who believed he knew all there was to know about the motion of clouds and the behavior of storms. The idea that a hurricane could damage the city of Galveston, Texas, where he was based, was to him preposterous, "an absurd delusion." It was 1900, a year when America felt bigger and stronger than ever before. Nothing in nature could hobble the gleaming city of Galveston, then a magical place that seemed destined to become the New York of the Gulf.
-
-
Two versions on Audible
- By stephiemav42 on 03-10-21
By: Erik Larson
-
Sailing a Serious Ocean
- Sailboats, Storms, Stories and Lessons Learned from 30 Years at Sea
- By: John Kretschmer
- Narrated by: Sean Runnette
- Length: 10 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
After sailing 300,000 miles and weathering dozens of storms in all the world's oceans, John Kretschmer has plenty of stories and advice to share. John's offshore training passages sell out a year in advance, and his entertaining presentations are popular at boat shows and yacht clubs all over the English-speaking world. John's talent for storytelling enchants his audience as it soaks up the lessons he learned during his often challenging voyages. Now you can take a seat next to John - at a lesser cost - and get the knowledge you need to fulfill your own dream of blue-water adventure.
-
-
Fantastic book on ocean sailing
- By Aleksander Styrvold Kristoffersen on 05-09-19
By: John Kretschmer
-
The Perfect Storm
- A True Story of Men Against the Sea
- By: Sebastian Junger
- Narrated by: Richard Davidson
- Length: 9 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Man’s struggle against the sea is a theme that has created some of the world’s most exciting stories. Now, in the tradition of Moby Dick comes a New York Times best seller destined to become a modern classic. Written by journalist Sebastian Junger, The Perfect Storm combines an intimate portrait of a small fishing crew with fascinating scientific data about boats and weather systems.
-
-
Best as a Listen
- By Cynthia on 01-28-15
By: Sebastian Junger
-
The Galveston Hurricane of 1900
- The Deadliest Natural Disaster in American History
- By: Charles River Editors
- Narrated by: Steve Rausch
- Length: 1 hr and 7 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The hurricane that struck Galveston, Texas, on September 8, 1900, killed between 6,000 and 12,000 people. Prior to advanced communications, few people knew about impending hurricanes except those closest to the site. In the days before television or even radio, catastrophic descriptions were merely recorded on paper, limiting our understanding of the immediate impact. Thus it was inevitable that the category 4 hurricane would cause almost inconceivable destruction.
-
-
The Hurricane
- By scott massey on 06-14-24
-
The Sinking of the Edmund Fitzgerald
- The Loss of the Largest Ship on the Great Lakes
- By: Charles River Editors
- Narrated by: Scott Clem
- Length: 1 hr and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Great Lakes have claimed countless thousands of vessels over the course of history, but its biggest and most famous victim was the SS Edmund Fitzgerald, the largest ship of its day to sail the Great Lakes and still the largest to lie below Lake Superior's murky depths. The giant ore freighter was intentionally built "within a foot of the maximum length allowed for passage through the soon-to-be completed Saint Lawrence Seaway."
-
-
A waste of money
- By Brutus the All Knowing on 04-13-17
-
Ten Hours Until Dawn
- The True Story of Heroism and Tragedy Aboard the Can Do
- By: Michael J. Tougias
- Narrated by: Joe Barrett
- Length: 10 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
During the height of the blizzard of 1978, the tanker Global Hope floundered on the shoals off the Massachusetts coast. The Coast Guard dispatched a patrol boat, but was soon in as much trouble as the tanker. Then pilot boat captain Frank Quirk, hearing of the Coast Guard's troubles on his radio, decided to act.
-
-
A riveting story
- By Christopher on 11-30-07
-
Isaac's Storm
- A Man, a Time, and the Deadliest Hurricane in History
- By: Erik Larson
- Narrated by: Richard Davidson
- Length: 8 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
At the dawn of the 20th century, a great confidence suffused America. Isaac Cline was one of the era's new men, a scientist who believed he knew all there was to know about the motion of clouds and the behavior of storms. The idea that a hurricane could damage the city of Galveston, Texas, where he was based, was to him preposterous, "an absurd delusion." It was 1900, a year when America felt bigger and stronger than ever before. Nothing in nature could hobble the gleaming city of Galveston, then a magical place that seemed destined to become the New York of the Gulf.
-
-
Two versions on Audible
- By stephiemav42 on 03-10-21
By: Erik Larson
-
Sailing a Serious Ocean
- Sailboats, Storms, Stories and Lessons Learned from 30 Years at Sea
- By: John Kretschmer
- Narrated by: Sean Runnette
- Length: 10 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
After sailing 300,000 miles and weathering dozens of storms in all the world's oceans, John Kretschmer has plenty of stories and advice to share. John's offshore training passages sell out a year in advance, and his entertaining presentations are popular at boat shows and yacht clubs all over the English-speaking world. John's talent for storytelling enchants his audience as it soaks up the lessons he learned during his often challenging voyages. Now you can take a seat next to John - at a lesser cost - and get the knowledge you need to fulfill your own dream of blue-water adventure.
-
-
Fantastic book on ocean sailing
- By Aleksander Styrvold Kristoffersen on 05-09-19
By: John Kretschmer
-
Caught by the Sea
- My Life on Boats
- By: Gary Paulsen
- Narrated by: Patrick Lawlor
- Length: 2 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Gary Paulsen takes listeners along on his maiden voyage, proving that ignorance can be bliss. Also really stupid and incredibly dangerous. He tells of boats that owned him, good, bad, and beloved, and how they got him through terrifying storms that he survived by sheer luck. His spare prose conjures up shark surprises and killer waves as well as moonlight on the sea, and makes listeners feel what it’s like to sail under the stars or to lie at anchor in a tropical lagoon where dolphins leap, bathed in silver.
-
-
Real Life Stories!
- By Roseclan on 10-25-22
By: Gary Paulsen
-
The Great Hurricane
- 1938
- By: Cherie Burns
- Narrated by: Anna Fields
- Length: 5 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
On the night of September 20, 1938, the news on the radio was full of Hitler's pending invasion of Czechoslovakia. Severe weather wasn't mentioned; only light rain was forecast for the following day. In a matter of hours, however, a hurricane of unprecedented force would tear through one of the wealthiest and most populated stretches of coastline in America, obliterating communities from Long Island to Providence, destroying entire fishing fleets from Montauk to Narragansett Bay.
-
-
Mesmerizing book!
- By Tracey on 04-23-13
By: Cherie Burns
-
Fatal Forecast
- An Incredible True Story of Disaster and Survival at Sea
- By: Michael Tougias
- Narrated by: Jeff Cummings
- Length: 5 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Fatal Forecast chronicles a dramatic fight for survival aboard two small fishing boats that were ambushed by a horrific surprise storm just southeast of Cape Cod. Soon after the Fair Wind and the Sea Fever reached the fishing ground at Georges Bank, they were hit with hurricane-force winds and massive 90-foot waves that battered the boats for hours. The direction of the wind made it impossible to turn back.
-
-
outstanding read...the story behind the story
- By James on 02-08-16
By: Michael Tougias
-
The Finest Hours
- The True Story of the U.S. Coast Guard’s Most Daring Sea Rescue
- By: Michael J. Tougias, Casey Sherman
- Narrated by: Malcolm Hillgartner
- Length: 5 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the winter of 1952, New England was battered by the most brutal nor’easter in years. As the weather wreaked havoc on land, the freezing Atlantic became a wind-whipped zone of peril, setting the stage for one of the most heroic rescue stories ever lived. On February 18, while the storm raged, two oil tankers, the Pendleton and the Fort Mercer, were in the same horrifying predicament. Built with “dirty steel,” and not prepared to withstand such ferocious seas, both tankers split in two, leaving the dozens of men on board utterly at the Atlantic’s mercy.
-
-
Two Times Terrific!
- By Carole T. on 01-31-16
By: Michael J. Tougias, and others
-
The Storm of the Century
- Tragedy, Heroism, Survival, and the Epic True Story of America's Deadliest Natural Disaster: The Great Gulf Hurricane of 1900
- By: Al Roker, William Hogeland
- Narrated by: Byron Wagner
- Length: 8 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
On the afternoon of September 8, 1900, 200-mile-per-hour winds and 15-foot waves slammed into Galveston, the prosperous and growing port city on Texas' Gulf Coast. By dawn the next day, when the storm had passed, the city that had existed just hours before was gone. Shattered, grief-stricken survivors emerged to witness a level of destruction never before seen: 8,000 corpses littered the streets and were buried under the massive wreckage.
-
-
Review of "The Storm of the Century "
- By S. Noe on 09-04-15
By: Al Roker, and others
-
The Wave
- In Pursuit of the Rogues, Freaks and Giants of the Ocean
- By: Susan Casey
- Narrated by: Kirsten Potter
- Length: 10 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
For centuries, mariners have spun tales of gargantuan waves, 100-feet high or taller. Until recently scientists dismissed these stories - waves that high would seem to violate the laws of physics. But in the past few decades, as a startling number of ships vanished and new evidence has emerged, oceanographers realized something scary was brewing in the planet’s waters. They found their proof in February 2000, when a British research vessel was trapped in a vortex of impossibly mammoth waves in the North Sea - including several that approached 100 feet.
-
-
Do the Wave
- By Roy on 03-05-11
By: Susan Casey
-
Sudden Sea
- By: R.A. Scotti
- Narrated by: L.J. Ganser
- Length: 7 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the tradition of The Perfect Storm, Sudden Sea hearkens back to a natural disaster that struck terror in the hearts of many. In this narrative, listeners experience the Great Hurricane of 1938, the most financially destructive storm on record.
-
-
Amazing story
- By RoseGrows on 01-07-25
By: R.A. Scotti
-
Wreck of the Carl D.
- A True Story of Loss, Survival, and Rescue at Sea
- By: Michael Schumacher
- Narrated by: Gary D. MacFadden
- Length: 7 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
On November 18, 1958, a 623-foot limestone carrier - caught in one of the most violent storms in Lake Michigan history - broke in two and sank in less than five minutes. Four of the 35-person crew escaped to a small raft, to which they clung in total darkness, braving 30-foot waves and frigid temperatures. As the storm raged on, a search-and-rescue mission hunted for survivors, while the frantic citizens of nearby Rogers City, Michigan, anxiously awaited word of their loved ones' fates.
-
-
A harrowing story of survival and loss
- By Ron T on 03-25-16
-
Rescue of the Bounty
- Disaster and Survival in Superstorm Sandy
- By: Michael J. Tougias, Douglas A. Campbell
- Narrated by: Tom Weiner
- Length: 7 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Rescue of the Bounty is the harrowing story of the sinking and rescue of Bounty - the tall ship used in the classic 1962 film Mutiny on the Bounty - which was caught in the path of Hurricane Sandy with 16 aboard.
-
-
Much heavier focus on sailing than rescue
- By Samuel Roda on 05-23-16
By: Michael J. Tougias, and others
-
Ghost Wave
- The Discovery of Cortes Bank and the Biggest Wave on Earth
- By: Chris Dixon
- Narrated by: Chris Dixon
- Length: 11 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Rising from the depths of the North Pacific lies a fabled island, now submerged just 15 feet below the surface of the ocean. Rumors and warnings about Cortes Bank abound, but among big wave surfers, this legendary rock is famous for one simple (and massive) reason: this is the home of the biggest rideable wave on the face of the earth.
-
-
A Surfing Classic of Monster Waves
- By Susie on 01-03-13
By: Chris Dixon
-
Last Train to Paradise
- Henry Flagler and the Spectacular Rise and Fall of the Railroad That Crossed an Ocean
- By: Les Standiford
- Narrated by: Del Roy
- Length: 8 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The paths of the great American robber barons were paved with riches, and though ordinary citizens paid for them, they also profited. Les Standiford, author of the John Deal thrillers, tells how the man who turned Florida's swamps into the playgrounds of the rich performed the almost superhuman feat of building a railroad from the mainland to Key West at the turn of the century.
-
-
A Pleasant Surprise
- By Roy on 04-05-09
By: Les Standiford
-
Into the Storm
- Two Ships, a Deadly Hurricane, and an Epic Battle for Survival
- By: Tristram Korten
- Narrated by: Dan Woren
- Length: 9 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In late September 2015, Hurricane Joaquin swept past the Bahamas and swallowed a pair of cargo vessels in its destructive path: El Faro, a 790-foot American behemoth with a crew of 33, and the Minouche, a 230-foot freighter with a dozen sailors aboard. From the parallel stories of these ships and their final journeys, Tristram Korten weaves a remarkable tale of two veteran sea captains from very different worlds, the harrowing ordeals of their desperate crews, and the Coast Guard’s extraordinary battle against a storm that defied prediction.
-
-
Just average
- By Rickmeister on 03-13-20
By: Tristram Korten
What listeners say about The Perfect Storm of 1991: The Story of the Nor'easter that Sank the Andrea Gail
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Lifeisshort
- 12-05-15
The Facts
The real story behind the wreck of the Andrea Gail and the confluence of two powerful storms in the Atlantic. A rare meteorological event where a tropical storm meets a nor'easter creating the perfect storm in the Atlantic. It also speaks to the dissatisfaction of the families of the lost sailors about some of the liberties that Hollywood took with the facts. Overall a nice summing up of "The Perfect Storm."
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
3 people found this helpful