NATIONAL STORM SUMMARY

JUNE 2008

1st-7th…In the East, the low pressure system in the northern New
England lifted northeast Monday and produced mainly light in the
region through the morning hours. Otherwise, it was beautiful Monday
across much of the Northeast and northern Mid-Atlantic. The associated
cold front that extended southwestward across the Northeast coast and
Mid-Atlantic States pushed southeast and caused strong to severe
storms to develop across the Mid-Atlantic and portions of the
Southeast. Penny to quarter-sized hail pounded through Florida and the
Carolinas, with areas of high winds reaching above 60 mph. In the mid-
section of the nation, showers and thunderstorms continued from the
Northern and Central Plains eastward into portions of the Mississippi
Valley. This was due to a cold front over the Upper Midwest and a warm
front over the Central Plains and Mid-Mississippi Valley. Missouri and
Kansas were the focus for severe weather development. Large hail 2 to
4 inches in diameter and high damaging winds 60 to 70 mph swept
through the region. These dangerous storms caused large trees down,
which blocked roads, and some areas without power.
Severe storms that downed power lines and trees across a large swath
of the country Wednesday were blamed for three deaths. A woman died
Wednesday afternoon when a tree fell on a vehicle in Annandale, a
Washington, D.C., suburb, a fire department spokesman said. Earlier
Wednesday, authorities in West Virginia recovered the body of a 20-
year-old man swept away while trying to drive his truck through high
water. Gov. Joe Manchin declared a state of emergency in at least 15
West Virginia counties after flooding and mudslides closed numerous
roads. Some places reported more than 3 inches of rain. In storm-weary
central Indiana, state police said a woman died Wednesday morning when
she drove her car into rushing flood waters. A wave of thunderstorms
that began Tuesday caused widespread flash flooding, with 5 inches of
rain reported overnight in some areas. A meteorologist in Virginia
said storms in the mid-Atlantic were part of the same weather system
that moved through the Midwest and Ohio Valley earlier Wednesday.
Residents were cleaning up in tiny Moscow, Ind., a community of about
80 residents 35 miles southeast of Indianapolis battered Tuesday by a
tornado that destroyed one house, damaged four or five others and
dumped a historic covered bridge into a river. State officials said
another house was destroyed in Greene County, and aerial coverage
showed some rural farm houses had been leveled.
One woman was in critical condition after being impaled in the upper
chest by a 3-inch-diameter tree limb, said Charles Smith, chief of the
Posey Township Volunteer Fire Department, who helped rescue her from
storm debris. In the mid-Atlantic, hundreds of thousands of people
lost power and train service was disrupted just ahead of rush hour
Wednesday.
In Chesapeake Beach, Md., Mayor Gerald Donovan said one person was
injured after an apparent tornado touched down and ripped the roofs
and siding off several homes. In Dunn Loring, Va., the roof was blown
off a house and a tree fell on it, Fairfax County fire department
spokesman Lt. Raul Castillo said. High winds were also blamed for the
collapse of a crane at a steel mill site near Baltimore. No one was
injured. Funnel clouds were reported in other parts of the region. The
National Weather Service in Sterling, Va., had not confirmed whether
any tornadoes touched down, said meteorologist Brandon Peloquin. He
said teams would likely go out later to assess the damage. In Ohio,
weather service meteorologist Andy Hatzos said countless funnel clouds
had been reported by early Wednesday, but no tornadoes had been
confirmed. Rain fell at a rate of 2 inches an hour in parts of Ohio.
Farther west, in Kansas City, KS, a fuel distribution center partly
reopened Wednesday, a day after a spectacular fire that started when a
lightning strike ignited a storage tank. No one was hurt.
Tornadoes dropped onto the Great Plains on Thursday after forecasters
had warned of a potentially historic outbreak, causing some damage and
spooking a pair of circus elephants in Kansas that escaped their
enclosure. The storm apparently frightened the animals, which wandered
around the town of WaKeeney, said Trego County Sheriff Richard
Schneider. One of the animals remained on the loose Thursday evening.
The other entered a backyard less than a mile from the fairgrounds and
was blocked off by fire trucks until trainers could coax it onto a
truck, Schneider said. "I guess it got tired of walking around,"
Schneider said.
At least four tornadoes touched down in western and central Kansas,
where residents nervously braced for what National Weather Service
forecasters called a potentially historic outbreak of tornadoes. A
tornado in Clay County in north-central Kansas destroyed a home,
damaged several other buildings, and toppled trees and power lines,
said sheriff's dispatcher Cat Dallinga. Storms also damaged roofs at
the Pratt County airport in south-central Kansas, officials said. In a
strongly worded statement Thursday, the weather service warned that
parts of Kansas could see hail bigger than baseballs and "a few strong
to violent long-lived tornadoes."
Wichita State University canceled evening classes because of the
weather predictions. Computer forecasting models for Thursday
resembled those on June 8, 1974, when 39 tornadoes raked the southern
Plains and killed 22 people. The National Weather Service on Tuesday
took the unusual step of giving advance warning of a possible tornado
outbreak based on the conditions. Forecasters had said severe
thunderstorms would form in Kansas and move toward eastern Kansas,
Nebraska, northwestern Missouri and Iowa. Heavy rainfall and flooding
were also possible, especially late Thursday night in southeast
Kansas. "The highest risk is central Kansas and the entire central
portion of the country," said Brad Mickelson, a weather service
meteorologist. "There is a high risk of severe thunderstorms." Singled
out as at high risk were Omaha; Topeka, Kan.; Des Moines, Iowa; and
south-central Minnesota, he said. The region at risk of severe
thunderstorms stretched from northern Texas to Minnesota and
Wisconsin. Funnel clouds were also reported in Colorado and Nebraska.
Storms on Wednesday soaked the region and then moved across to the mid-
Atlantic region. Three deaths were blamed on the storms. Tornadoes
touched down in southern Iowa, causing isolated damage in rural areas.
Many rivers flooded. "The rivers haven't had a chance to go down, and
with the heavy rains, they just keep going higher," said Brad
Fillbach, another meteorologist with the National Weather Service.
Fillbach said Creston, Iowa, which had a brush with a tornado
Wednesday evening, had about 6 inches of rain by Thursday morning.
Some roads were under 3 feet of water early Thursday. "The weather has
been real active this week. It'll be nice to get a few days to dry out
and get these rivers back down," Fillbach said. In the Washington
metro area, Wednesday's storm downed tree lines and power lines,
leaving more than 200,000 homes and businesses without electricity
Thursday. Some outages could last for several days because of the
severity of the damage, Pepco spokesman Bob Dobkin said.
An embankment along a man-made lake gave way under severe flooding
Monday, unleashing a powerful current that ripped several homes off
their foundations and down the Wisconsin River. Floodwater threatened
dams across the Midwest, and military crews joined desperate
sandbagging operations to hold back Indiana streams surging toward
record levels. Stormy weekend weather was blamed for 10 deaths, most
in the Midwest.
While the Midwest struggled with flooding, the East was locked in a
sauna. Heat advisories were posted Monday from the Carolinas to
Connecticut, with temperatures topping 100 from Georgia to Virginia.
New York City recorded a high of 99. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers
said Monday it would close a 250-mile stretch of the Mississippi River
- from Fulton, Ill., to Clarksville, Mo. - as soon as Thursday because
of flooding, bringing barge traffic to a halt. The closure could last
up to two weeks, corps spokesman Ron Fournier said. In Wisconsin, an
embankment forming the side of the man-made Lake Delton failed, and
the water poured out into the nearby Wisconsin River. The 245-acre
lake nearly emptied, washing out part of a highway, sweeping away
three homes and tearing apart two others. Don Kubenik, 68, burst into
tears Monday after seeing the $500,000, 2,800-square foot home he
built in 2003 snapped into pieces. The businessman from suburban
Milwaukee said he spent every weekend here. A couple thousand people
in Columbia County about 30 miles north of Madison were urged to
evacuate below the Wyocena and Pardeeville dams, said Pat Beghin, a
spokesman for the county's emergency management.
The Wyocena Dam's spillway had washed out, and workers were
sandbagging to try to save it, Beghin said. The Pardeeville dam also
was overflowing, he said. The weather service posted a tornado warning
for south-central Illinois and a severe thunderstorm warning for
Indiana. Some 200 Indiana National Guard members and 140 Marines and
sailors joined local emergency agencies Monday in sandbagging a levee
of the White River at Elnora, about 100 miles southwest of
Indianapolis. The White River was forecast to crest Tuesday at nearby
Newberry at 16 feet above flood stage. By Monday morning, flooding at
eight sites in central and southern Indiana had eclipsed levels set in
the deluge of March 1913, which had been considered Indiana's greatest
flood in modern times, said Scott Morlock, a hydrologist with the U.S.
Geological Survey in Indiana. President Bush late Sunday declared a
major disaster in 29 Indiana counties. Iowa Gov. Chet Culver said
nearly a third of his state's 99 counties need federal help. Wisconsin
Gov. Jim Doyle had declared 30 counties in a state of emergency. The
Danville River Dam in Danville overtopped on Monday, and more than 100
people were from an apartment complex, condo building and several
homes with airboats, mayor Nancy Osterhaus said. In Ontario, Wis., the
Kickapoo River left waist-high water on the village's baseball diamond
Sunday and backed up sewers, forcing water up through manhole covers.
Bill Hagerman, 53, vacuumed mud out of his business, Precision
Physical Therapy, where sewer water about a 1 1/2 feet deep had coated
his weight machines and patient table with muck.

15th-21st…Severe weather moved through the Northeast on Monday as a
cold front associated with a low pressure system up in Canada moved
through. These storms brought hail and damaging winds to the region.
Quarter sized hail was reported in Virginia, while Logan, New York
several car windshields were broken from the hail. Several trees were
reported down throughout the Northeast. The cold front extending from
the Northeast down through the Central Plains also produced
thunderstorms, some of which were severe, in the central part of the
country. The storms prompted several new flood warnings for the
already saturated plains. Also, there were several high wind and hail
reports, including hail at least one inch deep in Pawnee Rock, Kansas
and a home damaged by a tree that was blown over in Morehead,
Kentucky.
The stormy weather continued over the Front Range of the Rockies to
Texas. Eight tornadoes were reported in eastern Colorado, while hail
and damaging winds were reported with the storms across the central to
western Plains. A cold front sweeping into the Midwest brought a
return of showers and thunderstorms to the flood-weary region. The
storms were spotty, but produced hail and gusty winds. A tornado was
reported near Macedonia, Iowa. The rainfall from the storms was not
enough to exacerbate the existent river flooding, but some areas had
localized flash flooding due to heavy downpours. Areas from Illinois
to Missouri and Oklahoma all experienced some trouble with flash
flooding. The Gulf states were also dealing with some heavy and strong
storms with a surge of very warm, moist air from the western Gulf
coast. Hail and wind reports were made over portions of Louisiana and
southern Mississippi. Parts of the Carolinas and Florida were also hit
by locally drenching, gusty storms that produced hail. Meanwhile, a
cool, unsettled pocket of air in the upper atmosphere continued to
produce spotty showers and storms over the Northeast.

22nd-28th…Severe weather with damaging winds and large hail continued
across the eastern half of the US on Monday. A trough of low pressure
over the Northeast created a cold front that extended down the Ohio
Valley and into the Central Plains. The cold front triggered multiple
storms which included frequent thunder and lightning, heavy downpours,
and gusty winds. It was reported that the ground was covered with hail
in Knox county, Ohio, and several trees and wires were blown down and
damaged a home in Beekman, New York. Flooding has been of concern in
these regions as a result of these slow moving storms. The Southeast
saw some severe weather as a cold front moved through and triggered
showers and thunderstorms in the Carolinas. Hail up to 3/4 of an inch
was reported in Spartanburg, South Carolina and strong winds blew down
a large tree, causing it to block a road in Marlboro county, South
Carolina. Meanwhile in Florida and the Gulf states, afternoon showers
and thunderstorms have popped up. Damaging winds have been reported in
Inglis, Florida.
Severe weather developed along the Gulf states on Wednesday. Reports
from these storms include golf ball size hail in southern Mississippi
and strong winds associated with a possible tornado on the Panhandle
of Florida. High pressure allowed for warm temperatures, while
southerly flow supplied abundant moisture. These conditions combined
produced thunderstorm development. The Great Lakes saw severe weather
on Wednesday triggered by a small trough of low pressure that passed
the region. Strong winds, hail, or tornadoes were not reported, but
heavy rains fell in southern Michigan and northern Indiana and Ohio.