Are November gales really a threat to Great Lakes ships? Here's the answer

They're known as the gales of November, and they conjure images of hurricane-force winds, towering waves, ice-cold temperatures, and bobbing ships.

Also known as the "witches" of November, they occur between mid-October and mid-December, when storm tracks collide over the Great Lakes, creating unpredictable and violent weather. They've left the bottom of the lakes littered with wrecked ships. Maritime historians estimate they are responsible for roughly half of the shipwrecks.

They've even been immortalized in Gordon Lightfoot's enduringly popular song about the 1975 sinking of the Edmund Fitzgerald, which occurred about 17 miles off Michigan's Whitefish Point in Lake Superior. That tragedy claimed the lives of all 29 crew members.

Much of the devastation occurred before weather forecas