NATIONAL STORM SUMMARY

OCTOBER 2005

1st-8th...Heavy, wet snow fell in the Dakotas on Wednesday, while
Tropical Storm Tammy bought heavy rain and gusty wind to Florida and
Georgia. The storm in the northern Plains dumped 13 inches of snow on
Dickinson, ND, and accumulations of several inches were reported across
North and South Dakota. The wet snow and gusty wind combined to trap
numerous vehicles on Interstate 94 and other roads.
The storm also brought rain and thunderstorms to the southern Plains,
western
Great Lakes and upper Midwest. In the Southeast, heavy rain and gusty
winds were reported because of Tropical Storm Tammy. St. Augustine, FL,
received 2 1/2 inches of rain by midday, and other areas had lesser
amounts.
Heavy rain drenched much of the East Coast on Saturday, from eastern
North Carolina up to Maine. A total of 5.8 inches of rain fell in New
Bern, NC.

9th-15th...Residents assessed the damage wrought by the weekend's
deadly floods across the Northeast, but the swollen rivers barely had a
chance to recede Monday as more rain was forecast. At least 10 people
died in the heavy downpours and about a half-dozen people remained
unaccounted for, including a couple whose house was washed away by a
surge of water over Warren Lake dam in Alstead. Floods tore up
highways, tossed vehicles like toys, and knocked out electricity
from North Carolina to Maine. "I've seen pictures of earthquakes that
don't look as bad as this road," Alstead resident Glen Frank, 54, said
Monday of Route 123 in southwestern New Hampshire. The most severe
flooding in the state was in and around Keene, where some major roads
were under as much as 4 to 6 feet of water, officials said. The city
had no electricity and reverberated with the sounds of generators and
pumps Monday when the governor visited. Gov. John Lynch returned from a
business trip to Europe on Sunday to take charge of relief efforts in
New Hampshire. He declared a state of emergency and called in 500
National Guardsmen. The National Weather Service warned that dams could
fail or overflow if more rain falls in the next several days. The body
of an unidentified man was recovered from a cornfield near a river in
Langton and his death appeared to be flood-related, authorities said.
In Hoosick Falls, NY, the bodies of 6-year-old Michael Hackett, and his
mother's boyfriend, 39-year-old Robert Scanlon, were found Monday
morning. Officials said the boy slipped into the swift-moving Hoosic
River on Sunday and Scanlon dove in to save him. Witnesses watched
helplessly as the two bobbed in the rapids before being swept under a
bridge and disappearing. Two New Hampshire residents died after their
car apparently drove off a washed-out bridge into flood waters, state
police said. Rain also was cited in traffic accidents over the weekend
that killed three people in Maine, a woman in Pennsylvania and a
toddler in New Jersey. The weather service reported that more than 5
inches of rain drenched Wilmington, NC, on Saturday. Allentown, PA,
received 10 inches between Friday and Saturday. Rain also totaled 10
inches in parts of Connecticut and 8 inches in parts of Maine. As much
as 9 to 10 inches were recorded in northwest New Jersey. The deluge
broke a dry spell that had gripped the state since July, a state
climatologist said. Residents of roughly 115 homes along the Ramapo
River were advised to stay away.
A powerful storm that dropped up to 20 inches of snow in parts of
Colorado knocked out power Monday to thousands of people, closed a
lengthy stretch of a major highway and triggered rock slides in the
foothills. The storm was blamed for at least three deaths, while an
elderly man who while lost while snowshoeing was found safe after a
night outdoors. Authorities said 150 miles of westbound Interstate 70
was closed from the Kansas line to Denver. The entire highway was
closed for the 80 miles between Denver and Limon, where truck stop
parking lots were overflowing. Some 12,000 homes and businesses, mostly
in the Denver area, were still without electricity late Monday. Dozens
of schools closed or were opening late, including three in the Denver
area that closed because of power failures. Two children were
hospitalized with minor injuries after a school bus slid backward down
a steep embankment south of Denver, Douglas County schools spokeswoman
Carol Kaness said. A 73-year-old Denver woman was killed Monday after a
tree limb snapped off and struck her, and a man and a woman died after
their van skidded off Interstate 76 northeast of the city. The
unidentified 74-year-old man who got lost while snowshoeing with his
son Sunday was found safe after a night outdoors in the foothills
outside Denver. Hundreds of flights were delayed at Denver
International Airport as planes lined up to de-ice before takeoff, an
airport spokesman said. At one point, the Federal Aviation
Administration grounded all Denver-bound flights for 90 minutes. In
southwestern Colorado, rain associated with the storm system was
believed to have triggered two rock slides in San Miguel County,
including one that shut down a lane of Colorado 145 near Telluride. No
injuries were reported. Steady rain also caused two rock slides in
Boulder Canyon northwest of Denver, forcing the closure of one lane of
Colorado 119 and damaging a car. No one was hurt.
Heavy rain moved across southern Texas on Tuesday, while a cold front
spread showers over the Pacific Northwest and northern Rockies. In the
East, showers were scattered across the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic.
Mostly cloudy skies with areas of mist and drizzle affected the Ohio
and Tennessee Valleys, Great Lakes, Appalachians, Carolinas and Gulf
Coast. In the nation's midsection, showers and thunderstorms passed
through Kansas and Nebraska. A cold front triggered showers and
thunderstorms across southern Texas. Some areas received as much as an
inch of rain, with Cotulla reporting nearly 3 1/2 inches and flash
flooding.
Rain and embedded thunderstorms were the main weather impact across the
eastern United States on Wednesday. Rain continued to fall across much
of New England and across the Northeast. Flooding concerns of previous
days were aggravated by today's additional rainfall amounts of 1-3
inches across the region.
A seventh straight day of rain across much of the soggy Northeast
trapped motorists, delayed airline flights and sent streams surging
over their banks Thursday. Flood warnings covered parts of Connecticut,
New York and New Jersey, and residents in some New Jersey communities
were urged to evacuate their homes.
Northern New Jersey received as much as 4 1/2 inches of rain in 48
hours, and forecasters said some areas of the state could get two more
inches by Friday. A deluge over the weekend dumped about 5 inches
across the state and as much as 10
in a few spots.
Toilets backed up with sewage, military trucks plowed through
headlight-high water to rescue people, and swans glided down the
streets as rain fell for an eighth straight day around the waterlogged
Northeast on Friday. Overflowing lakes and streams forced hundreds of
people from their homes, tens of thousands of sandbags were handed out
in New Hampshire, and flood warnings covered parts of New Jersey, New
York and Connecticut. Some spots have had more than a foot of rain
since Oct. 7, and 2 to 3 more inches of rain were expected in some
places by Saturday. Across the Northeast, at least 10 people have died
because of the downpours since last weekend, and four others remain
missing in New Hampshire.
In the New Jersey shore town of Spring Lake, giant military vehicles
rolled in
to help carry out hundreds of residents after an inlet flooded and a
pumping
station overflowed, sending sewage into the water. Jack O'Connor, 84,
was rescued from his apartment by rowboat. "All the years I've lived in
Spring Lake, I've never been in a boat until now," he said. Not far
away, 65 homes were evacuated because of lake flooding, and a dam at a
state park failed, swamping the streets. About 100 nearby residents who
evacuated overnight as the Shark River rose were being allowed to
return by afternoon. In the town of Oakland, a half-dozen swans glided
down the middle of a street as neighbors watched water lap at their
porches. In Connecticut, the ground was so soft because of the steady
rain that trees toppled, blocking the railroad tracks in Naugatuck.
Commuters were forced to take shuttle buses. New Hampshire state
workers passed out 46,000 sandbags and 550 well-testing kits in that
state's hard-hit southwestern corner, and in Alstead, Gov. John Lynch
set up a temporary office in the town fire department, passing out
laminated cards with his cell phone number and direct lines to state
agencies and public utilities. Flooding last weekend washed away at
least 12 homes and heavily damaged dozens more in Alstead, a town of
2,000, and more rain was expected late Friday.

16th-22nd...Two days of rain broke Las Vegas' record for the entire
month of October, overwhelming flood channels, swamping roadways and
knocking out power.
Firefighters rescued several motorists from stalled vehicles Tuesday
after they
ignored warnings and tried to ford flooded intersections. Police and
the Nevada Highway Patrol reported numerous crashes, including a
parkway crash that critically injured one person. The storm dropped
0.94 inches of rain Tuesday at McCarran International Airport, breaking
a record of 0.45 inches for the same date set in 1962. The 1.42 inches
of rain that fell Monday and Tuesday swamped the previous record of
1.22 inches for the entire month of October, set in 1992. In Southern
California, the first major rainstorm of the fall left five people
dead in road accidents beginning Monday. The rain slowly moved out of
the region
late Tuesday. Officials blamed Las Vegas flooding on debris clogging
intakes to some the region's network of 69 retention basins and 400
miles of channels, and said other projects were being built to protect
neighborhoods that flooded Tuesday.

23rd-31st...A nor'easter that drew energy from the remnants of far-off
Hurricane Wilma battered New England and the mid-Atlantic states with
20-foot waves and winds up to 70 mph Tuesday, brought some inland areas
their first snow of the season and knocked out power to nearly 200,000
homes and businesses. The powerful nor'easter reminded fishermen of the
deadly "Perfect Storm" of
October 1991. On Cape Cod, Harwich Harbormaster Thomas Leach recorded
sustained wind of 56 mph and gust of 70 mph. The storm was reinforced
by the remnants of Hurricane Wilma, which was about 400 miles southeast
of Boston and speeding toward the North Atlantic after battering
Florida a day earlier. Many commercial fishermen stayed in port,
mindful of the "Perfect Storm," which inspired the book and movie of
the same name about a Gloucester fishing boat that disappeared when a
nor'easter collided with Hurricane Grace in the North Atlantic. In New
Jersey, waves up to 20 feet high washed away stretches of beach at Bay
Head, and howling wind stripped sand off the shore at Point Pleasant
Beach, piling it 3 feet deep on a street a block inland. Dozens of
flights were canceled at Boston's Logan Airport. In the New York City
area, airports reported flight delays of as much as 3 1/2 hours. In
Massachusetts alone, 40,000 homes and businesses lost electricity. Snow
fell at higher elevations from West Virginia, which got up to 7 inches,
to northern Maine. The wet, heavy snow brought down tree limbs and
power lines, blacking out some 76,000 customers in West Virginia and
27,000 in Pennsylvania. Atop New Hampshire's Mount Washington, the
Northeast's tallest peak at 6,288 feet, the Mount Washington
Observatory measured 100 mph wind and near-blizzard conditions in fog
and blowing snow.
Thunderstorms dropped heavy rain from Texas to the upper Great Lakes on

Monday. Severe storms dumped up to two inches of rain on eastern Texas
and lower
Mississippi Valley.