Continuing with our list of major weather events from 2004:

12. South Atlantic Hurricane: An extratropical storm moved off the coast of Brazil on March 20. It acquired tropical characteristics on the 26th, becoming the first ever documented hurricane in the South Atlantic since geostationary satellites were introduced into service in 1966. Amazingly, the Brazilian Weather Service still denies that it was a hurricane. Probably because they didn’t call it one at the time. It made landfall in the state of Santa Catarina on the 28th with top winds of 75-80 mph. Three people died and 38 were injured.

11. Gaston Flooding: The remnants of Tropical Storm Gaston caused tremendous flash flooding in downtown Richmond, Virginia on August 31st. A total of 10.61 inches of rain fell in the city during the storm,

10. Fort McHenry Water Taxi Accident: On March 6th, a strong thunderstorm with winds of up to 55 mph capsized a water taxi carrying people from Baltimore’s Inner Harbor to Fort McHenry. Five people died in the accident.

9. Utica IL Tornado: On April 20th, an unexpected outbreak of tornadoes across Illinois and Indiana turned deadly as an F3 tornado ripped into the tiny town of Utica, IL, about ninety miles southwest of Chicago. Several people had taken shelter in the basement of the Milestone Tap, a neighborhood country and western restaurant and bar. When the tornado struck, the building collapsed into the basement, killing eight people who were trapped in the rubble.

8. Hispaniola Flooding in May: A large extratropical storm dumped very heavy rains on the Dominican Republic and Haiti between May 18-25. Extensive landslides claimed over 2,000 lives.

7. Hurricane Jeanne Flooding in Haiti: Hurricane Jeanne moved along the north coast of Haiti on September 16-17th, producing devastating floods and mudslides that killed over 3,000 people.

More tomorrow...

Morning video update posting. You can find it at

http://beta.abc3340.com/weather/video.hrb

Not much to talk about as far as weather as the moderation continues and the warming goes into full swing. Long wave off US west coast to stick with us for the next week to 10 days. Southwesterly flow aloft should keep us warm with some chance of showers through the weekend with the Gulf open.

-Brian-

This was one of those mornings when how cold you were depended on your location--especially regarding elevation.

This happens often when a "cold snap" is retreating from the area and moving off to the east. As the high moves east, a SE wind will set in bringing a warming trend and disturbing the temperature inversion in exposed areas.

At 6 this morning, the temperature was 23 at Gadsden Airport while Cullman Airport had 36--a difference of 13 degrees! The valleys of NE Alabama are usually the last places that the old cold air gets "scooped out" by SE winds. The Cullman Airport is actually near Vinemont in a generally elevated area.

There was a seven degree difference in the low this morning between Pinson (23) and Birmingham Airport (30) It is likely that places atop ridges in the Greater Birmingham area had lows in the mid or even upper 30s...such as atop Red Mountain, Shades Mountain, Oak Mountain and Double Oak Mountain. Just another little thing that we weather humans have to factor in when forecasting temperatures.

This week, I will list my top twenty Weather Stories of 2004. Let’s get started....

20. United States Wildfire season: The wildfire season across the United States was well below normal across the lower forty eight states, but was the second worst ever in Alaska, with 6.6 million acres burned in the 49th state.

19. Rare Hawaiian tornado: Tornadoes are rare occurrences in Hawaii. On January 26th, a severe thunderstorm produced a short lived tornado on the island of Oahu. No serious damage was reported, but a local resident was able to record video of a menacing funnel.

18. Another record number of tornadoes: It looked like there would be a fairly normal number of tornadoes across the United States, until eight named tropical cyclones made landfall around the Gulf and Atlantic coastlines. The tornadoes associated with the landfalling storms along with a November outbreak pushed the year’s unofficial number to 1717. This number should easily surpass the record set just last year (1376.)

17. The eight named tropical cyclones that struck the U.S. coastline during the year tied the all-time record set in 1916. In addition, Alex brought hurricane force winds to the Outer Banks of North Carolina but did not make landfall.

16. Typhoon Winnie brought high winds and heavy rains to the Philippines on November 29th, killing over 500 people. Many of the deaths were caused by landslides which were blamed on illegal logging.

15. Cyclone Heta ripped through the South Pacific Island of Niue on January 7th, leaving the island province of 1,500 people so damaged that officials initially declared it might have to be permanently evacuated.

14. The longest tornado drought in Oklahoma history came to an end after 292 days when a twister touched down on March 4th.

13. White Christmas on the Gulf Coast: Low pressure over the Gulf of Mexico spread moisture up into cold high pressure along the Gulf Coast resulting in the first White Christmas ever observed in many areas, including Corpus Christ and New Orleans.

More all week...