Top Weather Stories of 2004 (PART ONE)

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...