Nick's Lists: Top 10 Weather Events of Recent American History (10-6)

As I said in Monday's post, our weekend in New Jersey was marred by some wicked weather.  Fortunately for us, we dodged the tornadoes and severe weather that pounded the rest of the Mid-Atlantic.  It got me thinking.  Weather is one of the most fascinating of science concepts if you ask me because it is probably the most relevant.  It's the only science topic you see on news on a regular basis.  Why?  Because it's the one science topic that we need to know in order to get through our day.  Weather affects everything: traffic, sports, and other events.  You can make the best plans in the world, but as long as you are planning them outside, ultimately the weather will have the final say on those plans. 

Weather is everywhere.  Political nuts will try to convince you that the Earth is warming, but as any good weatherperson will tell you: climate is what you expect.  Weather is what you get.  Our attempts to understand the weather have gone on for centuries.  Technology has made forecasting slightly more accurate, but even with today's tools, it's not an exact science.  However, we can learn from past storms how to better prepare for future storms.  That's the subject of our next top 10 list here at Caputo's Corner:

Top 10 Weather Events in Recent American History!

Notice the term "Recent."  We don't know much about weather history from before the late 19th Century.  This is mostly because this is about the time that decent records started to be kept.  The National Weather Service was founded in 1870, and records data go back to 1891.  So our list is necessarily incomplete.  However, we do the best we can with the tools we got, right.  And now, I present to you the top 10 weather events in recent American History!



10) College Park Tornado of 2001 (September 24, 2001)

This one hit very close to home.  The date was September 24th, 2001.  The attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon were only 13 days prior, so the whole of the National Capital region was still reeling.  We were just starting to get back to a sense of normalcy.  Then, a late-season severe thunderstorm decided to make its way into Maryland.  I had just finished with my last class at the University of Maryland and was making my way back to my car in Lot 6 (the Comcast Center lot).  On my way back, I pass by the North Campus Snack 'N Shop (or the "InCon" as we called it).  Ordinarily I stop in to grab a soda, but on this day, I decided that the best thing to do was get back to my car, as the skys looked ominous.  Whatever was coming, I wanted to beat it.  I got to my car and made it to the intersection of Route 193 and Metzerott Road.  It was about 5:13 in the evening.  About 5 minutes later, I'm driving on Metzerott Road and the skys open up.  It's coming down in buckets.  My mother calls me in the car.  I pick up the phone and tell her, "Mom, it's raining like the dickens!  I need to drive!"  She says OK and hangs up.  By the time I get home, I turn on the TV, and this is what I see.


From astro.umd.edu

This is what remained of the Maryland Fire and Rescue Institute's temporary headquarters on the campus right by CSPAC.  This is about 2 blocks from the intersection of 193 and Metzerott.  This happened at 5:20 PM, while I was on the phone with my Mom, just after I had left the intersection.  Wow.  What else was that I heard that two students were killed when their car was picked up and thrown into a tree across 193 from Easton Hall.  Those two students were Colleen and Erin Marlatt.  Our family is friends with the Marlatts dating back to our days at St. Louis School in Clarksville.  I knew Erin better than Colleen as she was only 2 years older than I was.  Their mother was a teacher of mine in 7th and 8th grade, so we knew the family well.  When I found out that they had been killed, I was devastated, as were many other friends of theirs.  While I did not get to attend the funeral at St. Louis, I was happy to know that it was well attended by hundreds of family and friends.  Afterward, the Marlatt family helped to establish the Colleen and Erin Marlatt Scholarship Fund to help children of teachers in Catholic Schools receive a Catholic high school education or college education. 

9) Hurricane Isabel (September 6-20, 2003)

Hurricane Isabel was another storm system that had significant impacts on the Mid-Atlantic region, but most of this storm's damage was in another part of the East Coast that is very important to me: Hampton Roads.  At its peak intensity, Hurricane Isabel reached Category 5 status on the Saffir Simpson Scale, the strongest possible.  Isabel was a classic African wave train hurricane.  This is where most of the very intense tropical cyclone originate as they have the entire Atlantic Ocean to gain intensity.  Once the wave blows off of the west coast of Africa, they immediately enter very warm sub-equatorial waters, where they begin to gain strength.  By the time they leave the area of the Cape Verde Islands, they are usually tropical storms.  By the time they reach the vicinity of Bermuda they are intense hurricanes.  At this point, the tracks either keep them moving due west or turn them north by northwest.  In this case, Isabel took the turn.  Depending on the strength of the upper-atmosphere jet stream, this turn can take the storm anywhere from Florida up to the Mid-Atlantic coast.  Most of the time, storms that turn end up in the Outer Banks of North Carolina.  In Isabel's case, she made the turn soon enough that she made a beeline for Virginia Beach.  By the time it reached landfall, it had weakened significantly to a Category 2.  Nevertheless, torrential rain and strong winds reached as far inland as West Virginia.  It remained a tropical storm until reaching Pennsylvania, when it finally lost tropical characteristics and was absorbed by a frontal system. 

8) Eruption of Mount St. Helens (May 18, 1980)

OK, so technically this shouldn't be on a weather list because this was a geological event, not a meteorological event.  However, there was still significant meteorological effects as a result.  Yes, there was significant geological damage.  Lava, ash, mudslides, and a destroyed forest in the vicinity of the mountain.  Yet, take a look at this report from CBS News that outlined how far the extent of the eruption really was. 

Starting at about the 4:07 mark of the video, the report talks about Ritzville, WA.  The dust cloud settled on the town, just like a snowstorm...5 inches worth to be exact.  In May, the snow season is long over, so it took quite some time for towns like Ritzville to mobilize and clean up.  The extent of the ash cloud reached as far away as Oklahoma.  The biggest impact was on temperatures, as the ash cloud blocked the sun, causing significant cooling in the areas most affected, never mind actually breathing in volcanic ash (yuck).  That's not very good for your lungs, just saying. 

7) The Perfect Storm of 1991 (October 30 to November 1, 1991)


The Perfect Storm on Nov. 1


A theme you will notice with our Top 10s is that events made into movies usually make our list.  The Perfect Storm of 1991 is no exception.  This is the storm upon which (you guessed it) "The Perfect Storm" was based, starring George Clooney and Marky Mark.  What made this a "Perfect Storm" meteorologically was the confluence of 2 different storms at the stame time in sort of a perfect "constructive interference" scenario (for those of you who understand what that analogy means).  A low pressure system spawned off the coast of Atlantic Canada from a cold front that originated over the midwestern United States.  When it emerged off the coast, the remnants of a hurricane (Grace) had been swept into that cold front and toward this low pressure system.  For those of you who understand how weather works, warm and cold air clashing together are what produce weather systems, especially severe ones.  Hurricane Grace provided the warm air and the continental low supplied the cold air.  When they merged together, the clash of air deepened the convection within the system tremendously.  It eventually restrengthened back into a warm-core hurricane (despite the presense of cold air from the continental low).  It didn't last long as a hurricane, but it lasted long enough for the swordboat Andrea Gail  to be lost at sea in its wrath.  This was the subject of the "Perfect Storm" film.  And now, just because I can, here is the climactic ending of "The Perfect Storm."

6) Storm of the Century (March 11-15, 1993))

What made this storm significant was not necessarily because it was a blizzard (which is bad enough), but because of the extent of the snowfall and the timing.  An unusually potent arctic air mass raced down from Canada ahead of the storm system, which intensified rapidly over the warm waters of the Gulf of Mexico (very similar to the dynamic setup for the Blizzards of 2010).  What made this storm different, however, was its size.  States from Maine all the way to Florida received significant snowfall.  Blizzard conditions were in the Northeast, but in the South, there is no way they are prepared for a foot of snow, especially this late in the season.  Usually by now, all of their snow removal equipment has been stored for the year.  Many locations even reported thundersnow and associated lightning strikes.  Thundersnow is very unusual in that it takes deep convection to form a thunderstorm.  In most cases, the air is not warm enough for this convection to take place in a snow storm.  However, clouds sometimes do build (especially when they are being fed by warm-air sources like the Gulf of Mexico).  This storm was not totally about snow, however.  In Central Florida, they received no snow (the panhandle got 4 inches), but straightline wind gusts from severe thunderstorms reached well above 100 mph in Florida and as far south as Cuba.  The thunderstorm line also spawned several tornadoes.  Schools in many states up and down the Eastern Seaboard closed for the rest of the week as snow removal was not at peak readiness, leaving streets snow covered for days.  Many rival this snow event to only the Blizzard Events of 2009 and 2010 and the Knickerbocker Storm of 1922...

...Which leads us into a perfect break point.  We have completed the first half of our list of extreme weather events in recent American history.  I hope you've been educated.  Tomorrow we conclude our top 10 and take a look at some honorable mentions as well.