The weather of the Battle of Trafalgar:

21st October 1805

Royal Meteorological Society, October 2012

The ships of the day – large and small

Nelson as a lieutenant

Nelson as a Vice-admiral of the White

Midshipman Horatio Nelson (with HMS Carcass in the background) attacks a polar bear in 1773. Latitude 80°N. A fanciful representation.

“Nelson and the Bear” by Richard Westall, date unknown

Trafalgar: campaign and battle

Trafalgar was the culmination of over two years activity during which Nelson had endeavoured to bring the French and, latterly, the Spanish fleets to action.

Following the two year blockade of Toulon, and a fruitless pursuit of the French-Spanish fleet to the West Indies and back Nelson returned to England on 19th August.

On 12th September Captain Henry Blackwood brought the news to Nelson, then at his home in Merton Place, that the French and Spanish fleets had sought refuge in Cadiz, and Nelson left England for the last time on 13th.

“The courses of the Victory were absorbed into the main, then her topsail went, and then her topgallants. She was now no more than a dead fly’s wing on a sheet of spider’s web, and even this fragment diminished. Anne could hardly bear to see the end, and yet she resolved not to flinch. The Admiral’s flag sank behind the watery line, and in a minute the very truck of the last topmast stole away. The Victory was gone.”

From The Trumpet-Major by Thomas Hardy

Anne Garland at Portland

Blockade off Cadiz

During September Nelson’s fleet grew in strength; he arrived on 28th.

The policy of open blockade so far from England required good weather to keep the ships on station, and to allow the in-shore frigate squadron to maintain communications with the invisible main fleet.

Throughout the weeks before Trafalgar, Nelson enjoyed the benefits of just such weather. Home Popham’s flag signals, proposed in 1800, were used to link the line of communicating ships, but needed good weather for ease of sight.

Nelson’s “England expects” signal

Weather observing in 1805

Page of observations from Syon House, Middlesex

Real Observatorio de la Armada, Cadiz

and page of observations

on land (temperature, air pressure, wind, rain and notes)

and at sea (wind force and direction only):

pages from the logbook of HMS Victory by Thomas Masterman Hardy

Thomas Masterman Hardy b. 5th April 1769 in Martinstown, Dorset

Detail from the logbook of HMS Victory (21st October 1805)

“Light winds and squally with rain. At 2 taken aback…

…at 8 light breezes and cloudy”

Detail from the logbook of HMS Victory (21st October 1805)

Winds recorded as “SW NWbW and NW”

Wind and sail c.1800

light airs

fresh breeze

storm

Nelson’s unofficial weather record!

Nelson kept his weather diary daily during the blockade 1803 to 1805 – note the difficult hand-writing

Nelson’s last weather observation!

Weather in Nelson’s private

diary

Saturday Aug 3rd Light

breezes northerly & hazy Wth

I feel every movement of

this fine wind but I trust in

Providence that it is all for

the best……….

Nelson’s air pressure series 1803 - 1805

Nelson’s chase across the Atlantic in pursuit of Villeneuve’s Combined Fleet – taking advantage (as all did0 of the3 air flow around the Azores ‘high’

Air pressure changes during October 1805 recorded at British and Spanish sites

Note this dip in air pressure!

The storm

Nelson’s weather diary makes the air pressure dip yet more evident!

“Do you not see, sir, that the barometer

is falling?”

“It is not the glass, but the courage of

certain persons that is falling”

Exchange between Admiral Don Frederico Gravina and Admiral Pierre Villeneuve, Cádiz 8th October, 1805

On his death-bed he said, "I am a dying man, but I die happy; I am going, I hope and trust, to join Nelson, the greatest hero that the world perhaps has produced."

Cape Trafalgar looking south

Nelson’s two columns approached the Combined Fleet at close to walking speed.

The ten miles than separated them at dawn was closed only towards midday.

The English ships spread as much sail as possible to gather power from the light winds, but the sea was disturbed by an ominous westerly swell in which the ships wallowed and which was to persist during the day.

Given the formation, did this confuse the aim of the French and Spanish gunners who needed to gauge when to fire from a moving platform?

Is this the sight that greeted the French and Spanish crews as battle was closed off Trafalgar?

The light winds and forest of masts and rigging became shrouded in gun smoke creating a ‘fog of war’ in which ships were often unable to distinguish friend from foe.

The fall of Nelson by Denis Dighton

Captain Jean Jacques Etienne Lucas

Commander Le Redoutable

Nelson’s final command:

“Anchor Hardy, anchor….

for if I live I’ll anchor”

The Eve of Trafalgar by William Huggins. Note the strong swell to which so many logbooks drew attention, and which Nelson knew foretold a storm.

The Trafalgar storm

The great storm lasted for over a week with logbooks noting fresh to strong gales evey day between 22nd and 28th!

It may have been one of the worst of its kind in the nineteenth century!

The last moments of Santissima Trinidad by R R Spencer

It ranged across the Bay of Biscay and into southern England.

Bells Weekly Messenger describes it also as a ‘hurricane’, and one that swept a Plymouth dockyard sentinel to his death in the Tamar!

The English Channel fleet under Vice-admiral Cornwallis were recording strong easterly gales off Brittany whilst blockading Brest.

But the North of England was calm, cold and frosty and James Losh of Newcastle recorded air frosts on both 20th and 21st.

From The Dynasts by Thomas Hardy comes the song “the night at Trafalgar”

In the wild October night-time, when the wind raved round the land,

And the Back-sea met the Front-sea, and our doors were blocked with sand,

And we heard the drub of Dead-man’s Bay*, where bones of thousands are,

We knew not what the day had done for us at Trafalgar.

* Dead Man’s Bay is an old term used to describe the dangerous coastal waters west of Portland.

Weather map for 21st October 1805?

Reconstruction of conditions on

21st October 1805 based on

Royal Navy logbooks from the N

Atlantic and Mediterranean

region supplemented by

instrumental observations from

Cadiz, Goodwood House, Syon

House, Newcastle-upon-Tyne and

Ednam (Berwick)

So, what was this storm?

A cut-off low?

UKMO synoptic type IId – winter cut-off low – surface (black) and thickness plots (red) for February 3rd 1971

In terms of pressure patterns the most striking

feature is the autumn break which shows up

prominently about 20 October on all pressure curves

from Perpignan and Gibraltar to Malta…

The Weather of the Mediterranean,

Meteorological Office, 1962

HMS Victory with the body of Nelson on board, by Clarkson Stanfield (1853)

Victory was towed into Gibraltar on 28th October by HMS Neptune. Although painted many years after the events that it depicts, the picture is arguably realistic from the point of view of the weather

Gibraltar today and a gravestone in the Trafalgar Cemetery.

Cadiz today and in 1800

and here is the shipping forecast issued by the Meteorological Office at 1200 hours on 21st October 1805

THERE ARE WARNINGS OF GALES IN PORTLAND, PLYMOUTH, BISCAY, FITZROY, TRAFALGAR AND SOLE

THE GENERAL SYNOPSIS AT 0800

LOW TRAFALGAR 985 MOVING SLOWLY SOUTH EASTWARDS DEEPENING 980 BY SAME TIME TOMORROW HIGH FAIR ISLE 1030

THE AREA FORECASTS FOR THE NEXT 24 HOURS

VIKING NORTH UTSIRE SOUTH UTSIRE FORTIES

N OR NE 3 OR 4. MODERATE

CROMARTY FORTH TYNE

N OR NE 2 OR 3. MODERATE

DOGGER FISHER GERMAN BIGHT HUMBER

NE 3 OR 4. MODERATE

THAMES DOVER WIGHT

NE 4 OR 5 INCREASING 6 OR 7 LATER. MODERATE OR GOOD

PORTLAND PLYMOUTH

E 5 OR 6 INCREASING 7 GALE 8 LATER. RAIN OR SHOWERS MODERATE OR POOR

BISCAY

E OR SE 4 INCREASING 6 OR 7. MODERATE OR GOOD

FITZROY SOLE

E OR SE 5 OR 6 NE IN WEST FITZROY INCREASING 7 GALE 8 LATER. RAIN MODERATE

TRAFALGAR

SW 1 OR 2 INCREASING 5 OR 6 VEERING WEST BECOMING GALE FORCE 8 LATER. GOOD BECOMING MODERATE OR POOR RAIN LATER

LUNDY FASTNET IRISH SEA SHANNON

E OR SE 4 OR 5 INCREASING 6. MODERATE

IRISH SEA MALIN ROCKALL

SE 2 OR 3. MODERATE

BAILEY FAROES SOUTH EAST ICELAND

VARIABLE 1 OR 2. MODERATE OCCASIONALLY POOR

Russell Crowe as Captain Jack Aubrey in the film ‘Master and Commander’

Thank you for your attention