Storm System Affects Large Portion Of U.S. With Tornadoes and Flooding

Nearly six weeks into the 2014 Severe Weather Season, there had yet to be a tornado or severe weather outbreak that rivaled anything close to that of 2011.  As a matter of fact, last year had seen a great deal more severe weather by this time in many parts of the country.  Even here in Central Jersey, there were strong to severe thunderstorms on April 10, 2013 that produced a great deal of lightning.  

Perhaps mother nature was giving people throughout much of the United States a much needed break after a brutal winter that saw several instances of polar vortexes and many snowstorms.  As recently as April 15th and 16th, there was measurable snowfall in portions of the Garden State.  This past weekend, things began to change in the nation’s heartland, where tornado activity to date has been well below average.  The first EF3 tornado wasn’t observed until April 26th when one touched down in Elizabeth City, North Carolina, causing the season’s first tornado related death.

A vigorous storm system that pushed into the Pacific Northwest at the outset of last weekend, pushed across the Rockies, and dove into a low level flow of moist air rising from the Gulf of Mexico to create devastating storms over portions of the Southern Plains and Mid-South.  Twisters popped up across Kansas, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Mississippi, and Alabama.  The strongest of these storms developed to the northeast of Little Rock, Arkansas producing what would be classified as an EF4 tornado that crushed the towns of Vilonia and Mayflower.  Some 3,000 buildings were devastated, and 15 killed by this twister.  It was the second time in the past three years that a powerful tornado devastated Vilonia.  The town had finally rebuilt itself after the last storm.

Moving over to Alabama, several tornadoes were deadly there including one near Tuscaloosa, which killed a member of the University of Alabama swim team.  Tuscaloosa was devastated by a twister nearly three years to the day.  A second storm, near Athens in Limestone County, was an EF3 on the enhanced Fujita scale, and left damage consistent with winds of 165 miles per hour.  An EF1 tornado struck the community of Kimberly, which is just to the north of Birmingham.  All together, about 31 of the 67 counties in Alabama had some sort of storm damage.  Included in the devastation were 240 homes
that were either damaged or destroyed.   Next door in Mississippi, three powerful tornadoes rocked the state including an EF4 in  Louisville, and EF3s in both Tupelo and Richland.  The death toll from these storms and others in the region reached 40 by Tuesday.

Besides the 79 tornadoes that touched down across the United States from Nebraska to North Carolina, there was an abundance of rainfall, which may have helped the atmosphere stabilize, and prevented more twisters from forming.  From the Florida Panhandle into New England, there was tremendous rainfall.  In the city of Pensacola, located in Escambria County, Florida, there was approximately 16 inches of rain.  The rainfall created flooding, and contributed to a gas explosion in a correctional facility there that resulted in two deaths.  The rainfall wasn’t limited to the Southeast either.  Instead, it moved northward into the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast, where it caused roads to collapse and get washed away in Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and New York.

From Tuesday night until mid Thursday morning, there was 2.80 inches of rain here at GWC in South Plainfield, New Jersey.  The heavy rain caused nearby creeks and streams as well as Spring Lake to swell, but only minor flooding occurred.  Around the Garden State, the situation was much worse.  Rainfall amounts in places such as Franklin Township in Somerset County was almost six inches.  Roads along Route 1 were closed from the outskirts of New Brunswick to places further south including South Brunswick.  The Raritan River crested up to 6 feet above flood stage at both Bound Brook and Manville causing flooding in those towns.  Outside the state, the flooding was even worse.   It was the fifth time since 1996 that significant flooding occurred in these areas.  Suburban Philadelphia communities such as Bensalem, Pennsylvania had roads underwater while a road outside of Baltimore collapsed, and took the cars on it with it.  Back at GWC, the total rainfall for the year reached just under 15 inches, which is now ahead of the  pace in each of the past two years.