Hazel

As I write this post on Sunday morning, nobody had answered this question

we don’t normally think of Ontario as being hit by violent storms but a really strong hurricane hit Toronto and places north in the mid 1950s. Do you know what hurricane it was?

The answer was Hurricane Hazel. It’s probably a nickname that every little girl in Ontario named Hazel has had at one point. There’s even one former mayor who earned the name.

Hurricane Hazel was a recurring topic of discussion from my mom as she and dad lived in the path of it, north of Toronto, at the time. There’s an interesting look “60 years later” here.

Thanks, WestonWeb.ca

When you look at it now and compare to storms that we normally see reported on in the news, you can see that the path really is bizarre. Normally, a hurricane heads east out over the Atlantic Ocean once it hits land. We normally worry about the Atlantic provinces as being the ones that would be most affected by a hurricane.

As I was formulating the questions for yesterday’s post in my mind, I was reminded of a conversation with Mom about “Hurricane Hazel Babies”. From what I’ve read, that would be babies born on or around October 16, 1954. Or were they conceived on that date? It was the topic of conception that made me wonder and, of course, the internet has an answer for everything.

On a whim, I did a search and found all kinds of conception date calculators! Here’s one of them. So, rather than using nine months, this may be a little more accurate at 38 weeks. Spoiler – born on October 16, 1954 generates a possible conception day of November 23, 1953.

So, you can tuck this little bit of trivia away for next month, the 67th anniversary of the hurricane that caused so much damage. And, yes, there’s a website to calculate that as well.

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