NATIONAL STORM SUMMARY

MARCH 2006

1st-4th...Rain fell on the West Coast and the South on Friday, while
snow
spread through the Great Lakes and New England. A Pacific storm pounded
California and parts of southern Oregon, then moved east. Moderate to
heavy rain and a few thunderstorms were reported in Northern California
and parts of the coastal ranges. Snow coated some mountain areas. The
Great Lakes and New England saw lake effect snow, with heavier amounts
mostly over the southern shores of Lakes Erie and Ontario. Light to
moderate snow fell on the northern Appalachians.

5th-11th...Both coasts were battling with winter storms on Monday while
the Central U.S. experienced a dry and tranquil day. A Pacific storm
pushed northeast towards the British Columbia and carried a cold front
into the Intermountain West Monday morning. Moist onshore flow caused
steady rain to fall in northern two-thirds of California through the
morning hours while moderate to heavy snow fell in the Sierra Nevada
with light to moderate amounts in the Intermountains, Northern Rockies
and Great Basin. As of Monday afternoon, 3 to 6 inches of new snow was
reported from the northern California Mountains and the northern Sierra
Nevada. Much of the Coastal rages received some light to moderate rains
as well. By late Monday morning, the steady rain over California
changed into showers as the cold front progressed farther inland. To
the East, a newly developed low pressure system pushed eastward through
the Ohio and Tennessee Valley as well as the Mid-Atlantic States.
Widely scattered showers and isolated thunderstorms spread across the
region Monday morning. Heavier rains along the associated cold front
swept through parts of the Southeast. By late Monday afternoon, much of
the Southeast cleared out as the system pushed offshore.
Storms plagued much of the nation west of the Mississippi on Tuesday.
Coastal rain and mountain snow fell from the Pacific Northwest and
throughout California. Heavier snowfall was seen on the west side of
the northern Rockies, with lower-elevation rains near the Great Salt
Lake. To the east, energy escaping the Rockies combined with Gulf
moisture, triggering severe weather over the central Plains. A line of
moderate to heavy showers and thunderstorms pushed into parts of the
Mississippi Valley. Hail was reported in South Dakota, Iowa and
Missouri.
Storms moving across the southern Plains on Thursday brought winds
strong enough to rip off roofs and blow apart barns. Thousands of
people lost power in Arkansas, and a lightning-sparked fire killed a
man. Southern Oklahoma had baseball-sized hail and surrounding states
saw heavy rain as the front moved east across the Mississippi River.
Around Little Rock, the high wind rolled over a mobile home and damaged
about a dozen other homes, and trees and power lines were down around
the state. Road signs were reported bent in Johnson County, in
northwestern Arkansas. A 78 mph gust was reported in the northeastern
part of the state. About 7,600 homes and businesses lost electricity
when power lines went out after being hit by trees or other power
lines, and the wind kept
workers from making immediate repairs. In the southwestern town of
Ashdown, an 83-year-old city councilman died after lightning struck his
house and started a fire. His wife was injured but survived. A couple
in the northeastern town of Tilton suffered cuts and bruises after they
left their mobile home and took shelter in their vehicle. The storm
blew out the vehicle's windows, but the trailer was destroyed, said
Gerald Britton, a deputy emergency coordinator in Cross County. Other
homes in the county were also damaged, Britton said. Lost shingles and
downed fences in Lonoke County may have been caused by a tornado, the
weather service said. Another tornado may have touched down in Woodruff
County, where trees and power lines were down at Morton, the National
Weather Service said. In Mississippi, students at Lockard Elementary
School in Indianola were ordered into hallways just before a tornado
struck, assistant principal
Valerie Simpson said. No one was hurt, but the storm caused roof damage
to three buildings and blew out windows. Winds as high as 80 mph took
off roofs and otherwise damaged homes in Bolivar and Panola counties,
said Lea Stokes, spokeswoman for the state emergency agency. Students
in several counties were sent home. The rough weather was caused by a
storm system moving from the northwest ahead of a cold front. The main
storm system was moving into the rest of the South on Thursday
afternoon, and other thunderstorms were possible from another system
expected to be centered in Missouri.

12th-18th...Powerful tornadoes ripped across southern Missouri and
southern Illinois during the night, destroying homes along a path of
more than 20 miles and killing a married couple whose car was blown off
the road, officials said Sunday. Several other people were injured as
the storm system pounded the central Mississippi Valley with hailstones
as big as softballs, high wind and torrential rain. It was not
immediately clear how many tornadoes struck the area straddling the
Mississippi River from Missouri into Illinois. The twisters were part
of a long line of stormy weather that stretched from the southern
Plains up the Ohio Valley. The worst damage was along a rural stretch
of Highway 61 near St. Mary in Perry County, MO, about 80 miles south
of St. Louis, emergency
management director Jack Lakenan said. A twister caught a pickup truck
on the highway and hurled it beneath a roadside propane tank, killing
the husband and wife in the vehicle, Lakenan said. The wreckage of the
pickup was wedged beneath the tank. Virginia Moore said she heard
television warnings about the tornado and hurried her family into the
basement. Moments later, the twister hit,
knocking over trees in her yard but leaving the home with only minor
damage. "First we heard a little bit of hail, and then the whistle of
the wind. Then just like that, it was over. Just a little too close for
comfort," Moore said. Also near St. Mary, mobile homes were tossed and
a brick ranch house was split in half. Several people were injured and
two were taken to a hospital in St. Louis. Across the Mississippi River
in Illinois, a tornado damaged several homes and businesses in the
small town of Fults, and injured one person, said meteorologist Ron
Przybylinski. One person was injured by flying glass in Bremen, IL,
authorities said. Meteorologist Rachel Trevino said officials were
investigating reports of two other tornadoes in the area, and that
residents should prepare for another severe weather pattern expected to
arrive Sunday night. The Missouri Highway Patrol said the tornado near
St. Mary had wind of
113 mph to 206 mph. Softball-sized hail caused more damage and heavy
rain prompted flash flood warnings in southern Missouri. The heaviest
rainfall was 3 to 4 inches about 100 miles east of St. Louis in
Illinois, said Jon Carney of the National Weather Service.
Homeowners across the Midwest were aghast at nature's fury after a
barrage of tornadoes left 10 people dead Monday and destroyed or
damaged hundreds of homes in five states. "It's just amazing how
devastating it is," said Mayor Tim Davlin of the Illinois capital of
Springfield, which nevertheless escaped with no deaths or serious
injuries. "It looks like the pictures we saw a couple months ago after
Katrina." Thousands of homes and business lost electricity over the
weekend. The University of Kansas and numerous public schools closed
Monday because of storm damage and power outages, and many Illinois
state workers in
the capital were told to stay home. Missouri Gov. Matt Blunt declared a
state of emergency and authorized the National Guard to help with the
cleanup. Nine of the dead were in Missouri. Among them were Billy and
Pennie Briscoe, ages 60 and 57, whose friends begged them to leave
their rural mobile home in Renick as the winds howled and the tornado
sirens blared. Usually, when there was a storm,
they would go to the nearby town of Moberly, but "this is the first
time he stayed," said Bobby Twyman, a family friend. Bobby Ritcheson
said he watched as a neighbor, DeAnn Francis Solloman, 39, was killed
near Sedalia. "The trailer came down right on top of her," Ritcheson
said. The National Weather Service said there were as many as 110
reported instances of tornadoes touching down over the weekend in
Kansas, Missouri, Oklahoma, Arkansas and Illinois. But the weather
service said it could take two weeks to confirm those accounts.
Hundreds of homes and businesses were destroyed or damaged in Missouri
alone by the tornadoes, high wind and hail as big as softballs. There
were no immediate damage estimates across the Midwest. Four of
Missouri's nine deaths were in Renick. Twenty-six people were injured
in surrounding Randolph County, 13 of them when a chartered bus
overturned while returning to Columbia College. West of Missouri,
classes at the University of Kansas in Lawrence were canceled Monday
because of the danger of pieces falling off buildings. Springfield, IL,
was hit hard twice in 24 hours, first by a tornado late Sunday and then
by strong wind early Monday that blew debris through the city. Windows
in the Illinois Capitol were blown out, and even the five-story
Illinois Emergency Management Agency building lost part of its roof.
The violent weather was driven by a powerful low-pressure system over
the Midwest that pulled warm air out of the Gulf of Mexico. The same
phenomenon caused powerful winds that drove deadly wildfires across
Texas over the weekend.

19th-25th...A storm system moved inland from the Pacific on Monday,
bringing rain to much of the West Coast and light snow to the Sierras.
While coastal rain dampened California and southwestern Oregon, showers
and thunderstorms also dampened the central Mississippi Valley into
eastern Texas. Moderate to heavy rain pushed through the Texas
Panhandle and Oklahoma. Rain was lighter across the northern and
central Plains, which also saw some locally heavy snow. Penny-sized
hail was seen in Humble, Texas. Gusty wind raked parts of the lower
Mississippi Valley, while freezing rain fell in parts of Kansas and
Oklahoma.
The spring snowstorm that buried parts of Nebraska under more than two
feet of snow swept through the Ohio Valley on Tuesday, shutting down
schools and making travel tough for voters headed for the polls for the
Illinois primary election. As much as two inches of snow an hour fell
in some areas of Illinois and Indiana, and wind gusted to 40 mph,
weather officials said. In Colorado, Interstate 70 reopened early
Tuesday; its eastbound lanes between Denver and the Kansas line had
been shut down for nearly 18 hours because of heavy snow. Interstate 80
also reopened Tuesday across Nebraska. The storm dumped as much as 28
inches of snow on central Nebraska on Monday, 20 inches in parts of
South Dakota and half a foot in the Oklahoma Panhandle. Wind piled the
snow into drifts seven feet high in parts of South Dakota and Nebraska.
Farther south, heavy rain caused flooding in the Dallas area. By
midmorning Tuesday, more than seven inches of snow had fallen on parts
of western Indiana, and 25 mph winds created whiteout conditions in
some areas, the National Weather Service said. Snowfall in parts of
Illinois topped 10 inches. The storm hit after an unseasonably warm
winter in which snowfall was 30 to 50 percent below normal in Indiana.
Through mid-March, Indianapolis had used about two-thirds of its $4.6
million snow-removal budget, officials said. Indiana state
climatologist Dev Niyogi said the erratic weather probably will
continue, in part because of the impact of La Niña, the mild cooling
of the tropical Pacific Ocean that often coincides with stronger and
more frequent hurricanes, a wetter Pacific Northwest and a drier South.

26th-31st...Heavy rain lashed the central Plains on Thursday. Strong
low pressure moved across the central Plains, with reports of large
hail and tornadoes. Gusting wind caused damage from Oklahoma to
Nebraska.
Flooding from heavy rain and snowmelt around the Red River threatened
homes and washed out roadways, killing a woman who stumbled into a
water-filled ditch, officials said Friday. The rain was part of a line
of thunderstorms and tornadoes that tore up homes, knocked down power
lines and injured several people as it moved across the Midwest a day
earlier. Severe weather continued across central Indiana Friday night,
spawning possible tornadoes blamed for damaging several homes and
businesses. No serious injuries were immediately reported. The storm
tore a wall from a home in suburban Indianapolis, exposing a
second-floor bedroom and a bathroom. Charlie Mascheck said his family
had to dash to safety. The storm damaged several warehouses and
outbuildings in the area, and downed trees and utility poles caused
power outages, police said.
In North Dakota, the rising Red River brought back memories of high
water in 1997 that swamped Grand Forks, and caused heavy damage
throughout the valley bordering North Dakota and Minnesota. The weather
service predicted major flooding for the Grand Forks area, saying the
river could rise to about 47 feet by next Friday. Flood stage in Grand
Forks is 28 feet, but residents are protected by a huge dike project
begun after the 1997 disaster. A 57-year-old woman was found face down
in a water-filled ditch along Interstate 29 in Grand Forks County early
Friday. She apparently fell into the water after attempting to walk
home when her vehicle got stuck on the flooded road, Sheriff's Major
Mike Fonder said.