This article reconstructed the track, intensity, and societal impacts of the Great Havana Hurricane of October 1846, using all available historical data, which include ship logs, newspapers, diaries, and early instrumental records. Most of the data were extracted from original manuscripts at historical libraries and repositories. Meteorological aspects of the hurricane were analyzed by mapping twice-daily surface synoptic weather maps from geographic information systems methods, estimating central pressures from known wind–pressure relationships derived from modern hurricane studies, and assessing intensity based on damage descriptions from the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale and an inland decay model. The storm was found to be much stronger than previously known. In this study, we clearly define the first known record of a landfalling Category 5 hurricane in the Atlantic Basin, which likely ranks among the top of all those known in the modern (1851–present) Atlantic Basin official hurricane database. Although this storm has been previously referred to as one of the most destructive hurricanes in the history of Cuba, the impacts of the Great Havana Hurricane actually spanned well beyond the Caribbean, tracking from Florida through many major populated cities along the East Coast and into Atlantic Canada. Clearly, such a storm today, with much larger metropolitan areas, would have caused enormous economic damage and should be anticipated in long-term hurricane mitigation, zoning, and worst-case scenarios. This study highlights the importance of examining historical documentary sources for extreme events, providing a framework on how to research case studies of premodern Atlantic hurricanes back in time.

本文使用所有可用的历史数据（包括船舶日志、报纸、日记和早期仪器记录）重建了 1846 年 10 月哈瓦那大飓风的轨迹、强度和社会影响。大多数数据是从历史图书馆和知识库的原始手稿中提取的。通过使用地理信息系统方法绘制每天两次的地面天气图，根据现代飓风研究得出的已知风压关系估计中心压力，并根据萨菲尔-辛普森飓风的损害描述评估强度，对飓风的气象方面进行了分析风尺度和内陆衰减模型。风暴被发现比以前已知的要强得多。在这项研究中，我们清楚地定义了大西洋盆地登陆的第 5 级飓风的第一个已知记录，这可能是现代（1851 年至今）大西洋盆地官方飓风数据库中所有已知飓风的最高记录。尽管这场风暴以前被称为古巴历史上最具破坏性的飓风之一，但哈瓦那大飓风的影响实际上远远超出了加勒比地区，从佛罗里达州穿过东海岸沿线的许多主要人口稠密城市进入大西洋加拿大。很明显，今天这样一场风暴，在更大的大都市区，会造成巨大的经济损失，应该在长期的飓风缓解、分区和最坏的情况下预料到。这项研究强调了检查极端事件的历史文献来源的重要性，