The 1916 Virgin Islands hurricane was a strong tropical cyclone that inflicted extensive damage across the Virgin Islands in October 1916. It was the region's most destructive storm since at least the 1867 San Narciso hurricane; Consul General Christopher Payne and archaeologist Theodoor de Booy considered the 1916 storm as the archipelago's most damaging. Its peak intensity was equivalent to a Category 3 on the modern Saffir–Simpson scale. The storm began as a tropical depression southeast of Barbados on October 6, though little is known about the storm's origins or its developing stages; by the time its center was first located, the cyclone was already a hurricane and causing damage in the Virgin Islands. After forming, the storm moved northwest into the eastern Caribbean Sea and strengthened quickly. Rough seas were produced in the Windward Islands at Dominica and Saint Kitts as the storm passed nearby between October 7–8, damaging coastal villages.
On the evening of October 9, the hurricane traversed the Virgin Islands with an intensity equivalent to a Category 2 on the modern Saffir–Simpson scale, passing directly over Saint Croix and producing gusts as high as . Of the Danish West Indies, Saint Thomas fared worst, with virtually every building sustaining damage. The island harbor suffered greatly and numerous ships were grounded or sunk. Entire towns in Saint Croix and Tortola were destroyed. There were four deaths in Saint Thomas, five in the remainder of the Danish West Indies, and thirty-two in Tortola. After battering the Lesser Antilles, the hurricane continued harmlessly out to sea on a northward and later northeastward trajectory. While well southeast of Bermuda, the storm's intensity peaked on October 12 with maximum sustained winds of . Steady weakening ensued thereafter, and the storm transitioned into an extratropical cyclone on October 14 before being absorbed by another cyclone east of Newfoundland a day later. Amid the storm's aftermath, coal carriers successfully went on strike for increased wages. Crop production in 1917 was significantly curtailed by the widespread damage wrought to agriculture by the hurricane.
Meteorological history
The 1916 Virgin Islands hurricane was the thirteenth known tropical cyclone of the 1916 Atlantic hurricane season. Owing to a paucity of weather observations in the region, the precise location of the storm was not known contemporaneously until it was already traversing the Virgin Islands as a fully-fledged hurricane. According to a reanalysis of the hurricane in 2008, conducted by the Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Laboratory, the storm began just southeast of Barbados as a tropical depression on October 6. Over the next three days, it traveled on a northwestward course into the Caribbean Sea. Winds in the southern Lesser Antilles remained low as the system passed between Saint Lucia and Saint Vincent on October 7. However, the emergence of low air pressures in Dominica prompted the United States Weather Bureau to begin monitoring the disturbance, requesting additional weather observations to better diagnose the developing tropical cyclone. The tropical storm strengthened into a hurricane on October 9.
Curving towards the north, the storm intensified quickly and made landfall on the Danish West Indies at Saint Croix on the evening of October 9. According to a Weather Bureau report published in the Monthly Weather Review, "The storm was of small area and of great intensity." An air pressure of 963 mbar (hPa; 28.44 inHg) was registered on the island, lower than any other reading in the island's history; based on this reading, the Atlantic hurricane reanalysis project estimated that the hurricane possessed maximum sustained winds of at least during its passage through the Virgin Islands, equivalent to a Category 2 hurricane on the modern Saffir–Simpson scale. The project also noted that the storm may have been a major hurricane at landfall. Gusts may have been as high as . After crossing the islands, the hurricane continued north, its winds increasing further to a peak of southeast of Bermuda on October 12. A ship caught in the hurricane that day reported winds of . The storm curved towards the northeast and weakened following this peak intensity, transitioning into an extratropical cyclone on October 14; the system continued its trajectory into the northern Atlantic before it was absorbed by another extratropical cyclone east of Newfoundland on October 15.