NATIONAL STORM SUMMARY

DECEMBER 2003

1st-6th...A sudden burst of snow and freezing rain swept across wide swaths of
the Northeast on Tuesday, glazing roads and bridges and causing hundreds of
traffic accidents. Four people were killed on the roads. Accumulations were
light in most places, but the blowing snow created blizzard-like conditions
that cut visibility and made pavement slippery across parts of Pennsylvania,
New Jersey, New York, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Vermont and New
Hampshire.
Several major Connecticut highways were closed, and traffic was snarled on
nearly every major highway in Massachusetts. Some New Jersey highways were
slicked with a mixture of snow and freezing rain. Traffic backups as long as 20
miles clogged major arteries around Trenton, N.J. Wrecks closed several
highways in Pennsylvania. In central New York, several school districts were
closed west of Syracuse, where the National Weather Service said 4 to 8 inches
of snow fell. Schools were closed or had delayed openings in parts of
Connecticut. A tractor-trailer rig crossed a median south of Albany, NY, and
killed a motorist. State police said the truck driver told them slippery
pavement contributed to the wreck. Another motorist was killed near Rochester
in western New York, police said. In Connecticut, a Bridgeport man was killed
when his pickup spun out of control and struck a median, state police said. A
New Jersey motorist was killed when he lost control of his vehicle on the
Garden State Parkway, police said.
Blowing snow may have to blame for a chain-reaction wreck involving more than a
half-dozen tractor-trailers and several cars on Interstate 80 in central
Pennsylvania, state police said. Several people required hospital treatment.
The Northeast's first major winter storm brought a blustery surge of sleet and
snow Friday, closing schools, clearing store shelves and making a mess on
highways. The storm had already brought a mixture of ice, freezing rain, sleet
and snow in mountain regions of North Carolina, Virginia and West Virginia on
Thursday. At least one death was blamed on the storm, that of a 23-year-old man
who was killed in an accident on a slick road in Virginia. Philadelphia drivers
endured a sloppy rush-hour crawl Friday morning and braced for more snow on
Saturday. The combination of snow, sleet and rain caused so many fender-benders
in the city that a radio traffic reporter called it "a $500 deductible day."

7th-13th...Parts of the Plains dug out from a pre-winter blizzard Wednesday as
the white stuff turned into wet stuff in portions of the East. Moderate to
heavy snow fell from Minnesota and Wisconsin south into Iowa and Missouri on
Tuesday.
In the East, temperatures plummeted in parts of New England, with a reading of
minus-15 degrees in Berlin, NH. Moderate to sometimes heavy rain fell
throughout the Ohio Valley and into the Great Lakes region. Rain also fell in
the Tennessee Valley and parts of the Southeast, including Florida. Snowfall
accumulations ranged from 3 to 6 inches across Iowa and Missouri and as much as
10 inches elsewhere in the Plains. Gusty wind caused considerable blowing and
drifting of snow throughout the regions. In the West, a Pacific storm system
continued to plow into the California coast, bringing rain and mountain snow to
much of the state. Elsewhere, cloud cover stretched across the Great Basin and
central
Rockies, while the Desert Southwest and Four Corners remained clear.
A strong, brisk nor'easter dumped more snow in New England on Monday, and snow
also blanketed much of the northern Plains and Rocky Mountains. Maine, New
Hampshire and Vermont reported up to 6 inches of snow since daybreak. Areas
closer to the coast, including Boston, had rain or mixed precipitation. Only
lingering flurries remained in the rest of the Northeast, where the weekend
storm dumped more than a foot of snow in places. Winds blew over 30 mph, with
some gusts over 45 mph in the region. Heavy snow also fell in the Rockies,
especially at higher elevations. Colorado, Utah and Wyoming had 3 to 6 inches
of snow in many areas by midday, with lighter amounts to the north.
Snow also fell in the northern Plains with accumulations of a few inches in the
Dakotas. Low clouds and fog hung over the central Plains. The Southeast,
California and Great Lakes states had calm weather.

14th-20th...Storms packing rain, snow and freezing rain soaked much of the East
on
Wednesday, while the western two-thirds of the nation stayed mostly dry. Most
of the precipitation extended from New York to Pennsylvania and into West
Virginia, Virginia, and the Carolinas. Another band of scattered showers fell
across the southern sections of Florida. Light snow fell over western sections
of New York and Pennsylvania, and cold air flowing over the relatively warm
Great Lakes produced some light snow over Michigan, northern Indiana and
northwestern Ohio.

1st-27th...Rain spread along parts of the West and East coasts on Christmas
Eve, with more than an inch soaking some places, and a winter storm warning was
posted for parts of California's Sierra Nevada. Rain fell on central and
northern California and parts of Oregon and Washington as a storm moved ashore
from the Pacific. The heaviest rain fell in northern California, with Mount
Shasta reporting 1.22 inches of rain by midday and 1.18 inches falling at Santa
Rosa. Wind gusted to 46 mph at Redding, CA. Snow fell at some higher elevations
in Idaho, eastern Washington, western Montana, western Wyoming, Utah, and
northern and eastern Arizona. A winter storm warning was in effect through
Friday for the mountains of northern Utah. Another storm system dominated the
East, spreading rain from Florida to New England. The East's heaviest rain fell
in the mid-Atlantic region, with 1.35 inches by midday at Salisbury, MD, and
1.11 inches in the Philadelphia area. As the rain headed toward the northeast,
cold, northerly wind on the west side of the storm carried scattered snow
flurries across Michigan into parts of Indiana, Ohio, northern Kentucky,
western Pennsylvania and West Virginia.
Heavy snow fell over Montana, where accumulation ranged from 3 to 7 inches on
Friday. Snow showers also blew across higher elevations of eastern Idaho,
Wyoming and northern Utah.

28-31st...A new Pacific storm churned toward Southern California on Monday,
bringing the threat of more flash floods and mudslides in the mountains where
torrents of mud on Christmas Day killed 14 people and left two missing. The
National Weather Service issued a flash flood warning through Tuesday evening
for the San Bernardino Mountains, scene of the tragedies. One to 3 inches of
rain were expected to begin falling Monday night. The mudslides last week were
set off when torrential rain streamed down hillsides that had been burned bare
by wildfires in the fall. Searchers continued to look for the bodies of two
children missing since mud, boulders and tree trunks swept through the St.
Sophia Camp in Waterman Canyon. The number of deaths at the Greek Orthodox camp
rose to 12 Sunday with the recovery of five bodies, including that of the
caretaker. Two other people died the same day when a flood swept through a
trailer campground about five miles away in Devore. The caretaker of the church
camp, Jorge Monzon, 41, and his wife, Clara, 40, apparently had invited friends
and family to celebrate Christmas at the retreat. Many of the guests were
Guatemalan immigrants who attended a San Bernardino church. The bodies of
Monzon's two daughters were recovered during the weekend. His baby son was
missing, along with a teenage boy. The bodies of two children found Sunday had
washed down from the camp and were tangled in debris more than four miles
below, in a cement catch basin in downtown San Bernardino, Patterson said.