Edmund Fitzgerald’s route choice proved fateful for ship 50 years ago

Weather forecasts from 1975 underestimated the intensity of the November storm that sank the Edmund Fitzgerald.

Though more intense November storms have occurred since, improvements in forecasting and preparedness have increased safety.

As the Great Lakes bulk carriers Edmund Fitzgerald and Arthur M. Anderson loaded up on the shores of western Lake Superior to prepare for another trip down the Great Lakes on Nov. 9, 1975, Anderson Capt. Jesse B. "Bernie" Cooper years later recalled it as "one of the special days on Lake Superior — just ripples on the water, sunny and warm for November."

But all was not well weather-wise.

Within 24 hours, both ships, and others on Lake Superior, would be lashed in a violent storm, what mariners often called "the Witch of November," the occasional inte