Which parts of the Cape face the greatest peril from storm wave erosion?
The shorelines on Cape Cod that are exposed to the full fury of northeast storms will suffer the most from shore erosion. This includes the ocean side of lower Cape Cod and the western part of the north shore of upper Cape Cod in Sandwich that is beyond the lee of the lower Cape. These reaches of the coast are exposed to the large storm waves generated by northeast winds blowing across the great fetch of the Gulf of Maine. The south shore of upper Cape Cod and the shore of Buzzards Bay suffer rapid erosion during hurricanes, especially those that cross the coast to the west of the Cape, as did Hurricane Bob in 1991. However, the frequency of hurricanes is much less than the frequency of northeast storms and, unlike northeast storms that may attack long stretches of the coast for several days at a time, fast-moving hurricanes generally impact a much smaller section of the coast and for only a few hours. Although hurricane erosion can be serious and dramatic, in the long run, the northea
