7:01 AM
6:11 PM
11 hours 12 minutes
Columbus landed in what is now the Bahamas on this date in 1492, and I wanted to note his meteorological connections, as he was the first European to write about a storm, known to the Guatemalan natives as a god called Hunrakan. Some natives of the West Indies called these fierce wind storms huracans. Columbus appears to have encountered the edge of a hurricane in 1494, while in the year 1495, the settlement of Isabella was destroyed by a hurricane.