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East Coast Heat Wave Death Toll Over 30
As we cautioned before our most recent heat wave started -- heat kills, particularly early in the summer season.
The Associated Press is reporting the heat wave that spanned last Saturday through Tuesday killed more than 30 people on the East Coast, 15 of those in Philadelphia. Seven heat-related deaths were reported in Virginia (Richmond Times Dispatch) and two in Maryland (Washington Post).
Of the two deaths in Maryland, one was a 79-year-old man in Anne Arundel County and the other a 65-year-old man in Prince George's County. According to the Annapolis Capital, the Anne Arundel County man was found inside his house with no air conditioning or fans running with the doors and windows closed. The air temperature inside the house was in the 90s.
Battalion Chief Matthew Tobia, an Anne Arundel County Fire Department spokesman, sagely told the Annapolis Capital, "[T]his death highlights the absolute importance of staying cool, staying hydrated and checking in on your neighbors."
By
Jason Samenow
| June 13, 2008; 10:45 AM ET
Categories:
Extreme Heat
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Posted by: El Bombo | June 13, 2008 1:14 PM | Report abuse
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Back Online. Just got my Comcast High Speed Internet hooked up.
While I was "dark", the biggest weather event here was the severe storm of Wednesday, June 4. We had no power failure in South Arlington, but the suddenness of the storm was a big surprise. Winds went from calm to 40+ mph in a second or two. There was also quite a bit of rain and dust. Apparently things were worse just a little ways southwest of me in Annandale.
I followed the storm on radar and it behaved in a manner similar to those Midwest derechos with which I am quite familiar. Unlike a "classic" derecho, the June 4 storm was marked by "rotation" signatures along the length of the entire bow echo on Doppler radar. Generally a classic derecho is characterized by the force and speed of its straight line winds, not by rotation echos although "gustnadoes" are known to occur. It's possible that many of the funnel clouds observed with the June 4 storm were EF0 or EF1 "gustnadoes".
One interesting coincidence: This severe storm happened on the fiftieth anniversary, to the day, of the great Colfax tornado of June 4, 1958 in Dunn County, Wisconsin. The death toll from that storm was 29.