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NBC has a new show hosted by Cedric the Entertainer called “It’s Worth What?” where the contestants guess which objects are more expensive than others. In the weather department, we do that with weather disasters. Let’s play: Which has cost more? Hurricane Ivan (2004) or Hurricane Ike (2008) What about this? Blizzard of ’93 [...]  Departure from normal so far this month... The month of April has been extremely wet and we’re only a couple of weeks into it right now. We are more than 75% greater than normal for all but four counties in the state. Three of those counties are between 51 and 75% above average. Erie County is between 25 and 50% above average. Take a look at the graphic and you’ll see for yourself. The graphic shows the departure from normal as the bottom number and the total precipitation as the top number. I also checked the year-to-date totals and all counties in Pennsylvania are above average so far this year (not that this is a surprise). You can see multiple graphics by heading to the MARFC once you’re done here. I’ll post a link at the bottom of the post. In searching for a trivia question this morning, I started thinking about flooding and how many floods we have a year in the state of Pennsylvania. I found a great website (link at bottom) that has information about all of extreme weather we see in PA. While the information may not be 100% accurate, it’s still a good representation or sampling of the events that happen. (Read More)  Abandoned House In Johnsonburg - Courtesy: Mitchell Dececchis We told you that we were going to have a lot of rain on Tuesday starting way back on Sunday (and maybe sooner). On Monday morning, I mentioned that we could have over 2 inches of rain and at one point alluded to the fact that there would be between 2 and 3 inches of rain. I also mentioned the opportunity for flooding due to the rain. Unfortunately, there was way too much rain and it caused many problems across the Alleghenies. We had a lot of pictures and information posted to our Facebook page over the last couple of days. The image on the left is just one of the pictures that was posted on our Facebook page. This one comes from Mitchell Dececchis. He mentioned that this house in Johnsonburg was abandoned due to the rain. If you want to see more pictures, you can head over to our Facebook page. I’ll post the link at the end of this post. Just want to say thank you to everyone who posted and shared information with us during the rain event. Let’s take a look at how much rain actually fell…
 Rain Totals from November 30 thru December 1, 2010  Kennywood Park Damage - 2002 - Courtesy NWS May 31, 1889 May 31, 1985 May 31, 2002 Are you sensing a pattern here? May 31st has traditionally been a day of weather devastation in western Pennsylvania. Let me explain each of those dates. May 31, 1889: The Johnstown Flood – The flood was the result of the failure of the South Fork Dam and resulted in a torrent of 4.8 billion gallons of water. The result was over 2,200 people dead and $17 million in damage. May 31, 1985: Tornado Outbreak – There were at least 41 tornadoes and the death toll was 88. There were over 1,000 injuries, too. This is the 25th anniversary of this outbreak. It’s notable for our region because of the Moshannon State Forest tornado. The F4 tornado traveled over 70 miles and was over one-half a mile wide. For more details, right click and save target as on this link. May 31, 2002: Kennywood Macroburst – I include this one because it hits home for me. A lot of people here go to Kennywood, too. It was an extremely volatile day and a macroburst hit Kennywood Park. I remember this well because my brother was at the park when this hit. He had to jump into a vendor’s booth and they shut the window. Here’s how the National Weather Service describes the day: Map of Coxes Creek I get lots of ideas while surfing the web. While surfing today, I stumbled upon a story from WPXI (our sister station in Pittsburgh) about Somerset County. The director of the Somerset County Conservation District, Len Lichvar, secured a grant for $24,000 to provide rain barrels to residents along [...] Severe Weather Awareness Week It’s that time of year… Severe Weather Awareness Week! Every year the National Weather Service puts out a public statement telling the general public what to do in severe weather. They cover everything from lightning to tornadoes to flooding. Here’s the rundown for this week’s topics: Monday: Tornadoes Tuesday: [...]  Flooding - Courtesy: Ron Penrod It was a wet weekend across the Alleghenies and some of us picked up over 2 inches of rain between Friday and Sunday. The bulk of the rain fell on Saturday, as expected. Some of the hardest hit areas were in Somerset County as residents in Holsopple were evacuated on Saturday due to the rising waters. The returned home Sunday to start the clean-up. It wasn’t all bad as some actually went kayaking in the ocean-like waters of the Stonycreek River near Greenhouse Park in Somerset County. So how much rain did we pick up? Have a look below at some of the totals. These come from the NWS Public Information Statement released Sunday at 2 PM. Bedford County Buffalo Mills – 2.32″ Blair County Altoona – 2.58″ Cambria County Belmont – 1.09″ Cameron County Stevenson Dam – 1.71″ Centre County State College – 2.13″ Clinton County Lock Haven – 1.57″ Somerset County Meyersdale – 2.30″ Our rivers and streams across the Alleghenies crested early Sunday morning. Have a look at some of the final crests for some of the places we were watching.  Rt. 281 into Confluence I would have loved to do a live stream today, but the cards just didn’t fall into place. Sorry. However, we did get several pictures from the flooding event across the Alleghenies. I’ll share a couple of them for you on here. As of 9:00 PM on Saturday, rain totals look like this: Altoona – 1.5″ The storm is still expected to bring more rain (albeit lighter) through the day on Sunday and into Monday before coming to an end. Rivers are expected to crests in flood stage across the region early Sunday morning. Some rivers will be into moderate or even major flood stage by the time all is said and done. At the time of this post, rivers currently at flood or action stage include the Conemaugh River at Seward and the Youghiogheny River at Confluence. The Frankstown Branch of the Juniata and the Aughwick Creek at Shirleysburg are also at action or flood stage and expected to rise overnight. We’ll get a better idea and updated information after 10 PM at the AHPS River Forecasts website (which is currently down due to server issues). In the meantime, you can get more river information by clicking on either of these links. One has information for rivers in the area covered by NWS Pittsburgh and one is for NWS State College. http://bit.ly/dwCyDi and http://bit.ly/bsyWgW All signs are pointing to a heavy rain event for the Alleghenies, starting later Friday into Saturday. There’s a few changes in the thinking from last night, but the overall theme remains the same. The steadiest and heaviest of the rain looks to fall on Saturday. Right now, amounts appear to be on the order of an inch to an inch and a half. If we see rainfall amounts over 1.5 [...] There’s still quite a bit of snow on the ground in the Laurel Highlands, and that has the potential to pose some problems later this week. I know this is a little out of our viewing area, but a lot of these events impacted the Alleghenies, too. NWS in Pittsburgh has listed the top 10 weather events for 2000 through 2009. I have to agree with the biggest weather event, as it was a major disaster in my hometown, as well. The only good that came from all the flooding is the fact that we ended up getting a McDonald’s in our little town. Here’s half the list… To read more, click the link at the end to be taken to the NWS page. The southeast has been pummelled with terrible rains over the past week or so. It’s been so bad that there have been multiple deaths and incredible amounts of damage. I saw video this morning from the Today Show of a rollercoaster that was half underwater. (Update: I’m pretty sure the video is fixed. If it isn’t, click the msnbc.com link below. You can also get the whole story from msnbc.com by clicking here.) If the video isn’t readily available, visit msnbc.com.
I found this graphic indicating just how much rain they’ve received. First off, I don’t know who uses the metric system, but 300 mm is equal to almost 12 inches. Second, take a look at the multiple bullseye over the southeast of areas with more than a foot of rain. It’s just devastating. Today is the 120th anniversary of one of the worst natural disasters in American history. On May 31, 1889, the South Fork Dam gave way sending a 40-foot high wall of water roaring down the Conemaugh Valley. The flood crashed into the city of Johnstown in the late afternoon. More than 22-hundred people lost [...] It’s a busy night in the Severe Weather Center (both of them actually… more on that in a second!). Here’s what we have going on… a storm system is moving through the Alleghenies and bringing very heavy rains to parts of the viewing area. Along with that, expect some thunderstorms, high winds, and even [...] Have you had enough of the rain yet? I sure have. We’ve had our fair share of it over the past week across the Alleghenies. In particular, areas south and east have had a lot of rain. Let’s compare a couple of locations in the region and see how much rain we’ve had… Altoona: [...] More rain is in the forecast over the next 36 hours, and it looks very similar to what we picked up on Monday morning. Rainfall totals should average about 3/4″, which is not good news since we picked up more than that in some areas on Monday. For that reason, we have Flood Watches out from the National Weather Service from Wednesday afternoon through Thursday: Like Tony mentioned yesterday, we got a good drenching across PARTS of the Alleghenies. We actually came pretty close to breaking a record in Johnstown. The record rainfall for May 4th is 0.85″ in a single day. Yesterday, we had 0.80″. We were only 0.05″ away from a new record. Courtesy of the NWS, [...] The spring (April through June) temperature and precipitation outlook issued today by the Climate Prediction Center – a division of the National Weather Service – indicates warmer-than-normal temperatures from Texas westward to the California deserts north to central Utah with cooler-than-normal temperatures in the Northwest, Hawaii and much of Alaska. Odds favor below-average precipitation across the northwestern U.S. and South Florida and favor above-average precipitation in Hawaii and northern Alaska. Over the past few days, we’ve had some rivers and streams come out of their banks across the Northern Alleghenies. Next week is Flood Safety Awareness Week, brought to you by the National Weather Service. National Flood Safety Awareness Week is intended to highlight some of the many ways floods can occur, the hazards associated with floods, and what you can do to save life and property. |
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