Wednesday, April 12

Weather highlights from the first week of April       Send a link to a friend

[APRIL 12, 2006]  HOPEWELL JUNCTION, N.Y. --

Travel weather

Wet and windy in the Northwest: Stormy weather has been relentless across the northern part of California, Oregon and Washington for the past several weeks, and this one was expected to be no exception. Flight delays were inevitable from San Francisco and Sacramento, into Portland and Seattle. Rain was expected on a few occasions across Southern California, affecting flights into or through Los Angeles. In the Northeast, showers and thunderstorms were expected to arrive during the middle part of the week and then linger in some areas through Friday night. Chicago and St. Louis were also expected to see midweek storms causing delays. The southern part of the country was expected to feature generally good weather. The forecast for Dallas and Fort Worth eastward into Atlanta and Charlotte was generally fair and void of thunderstorms.

Eastern U.S.

Twisters strike Tennessee again: For the second time in less than one week, violent thunderstorms and tornadoes ripped through Tennessee leaving a trail of death and destruction. Twisters touched down in 10 counties in the state on April 7, killing at least 12 people. Five days earlier, an outbreak of tornadoes in the western part of the state killed 24 people, along with four others in Missouri and Illinois. The worst of the damage from the latest round of storms occurred in Warren County, located about 65 miles to the southeast of Nashville.

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In comparison with the past few years, the number of tornadoes nationwide has jumped dramatically through the first part of 2006. Through the end of March, 286 tornadoes touched down, compared with an average of 70 during the same three-month period over the past three years.

Western U.S.

Skiers perish in fissure: Three members of a ski patrol team died April 6 when they fell into a volcanic fissure at the Mammoth Mountain resort in California. The victims were part of a team inspecting the mountain after a heavy snowfall. High levels of carbon monoxide in the mountain cavity may have played a role in the skiers' deaths. The mountain is located north of Los Angeles and is popular with skiers from Southern California.

U.S. Gulf and East Coast

Gone but not forgotten: The names of five devastating hurricanes from last season have been officially retired from use. Katrina, Dennis, Rita, Stan and Wilma will be removed from the lists used to name storms in the Atlantic, Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico region. The World Meteorological Organization routinely retires the names of unusually destructive or deadly storms. Sixty-seven names have been retired since storms were first named in 1953. The five names dropped this year were the most retired in a single year.

[Compu-Weather]

           

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