THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1997, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Monday, January 6, 1997 TAG: 9701060046
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY STEVE STONE, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: 85 lines
The seasons largely lived up to their billing in Hampton Roads for the year just ended.
``1996 was a memorable weather year,'' said Dave Tolleris, a meteorologist at the National Weather Service office in Wakefield. ``It started off with a cold and snowy winter'' followed by ``a wet spring, an active hurricane season and a chilly autumn.''
It was the first real dose of winter in seven years in Hampton Roads, Tolleris said, with a total seasonal (December through February) snowfall of 19.2 inches at the Weather Service office at Norfolk International Airport.
The major snow event was the Blizzard of '96, which occurred from Jan. 6 through the 8th.
In Norfolk, the storm dropped 4.5 inches of snow before it changed to rain, then 2 inches more on the 8th when it changed back to snow. Significantly higher amounts of snow were reported over inland sections of southeast Virginia.
Winter didn't ease in February. On the 2nd and 3rd, rain changed to freezing rain and sleet, producing the worst ice storm in Hampton Roads in two decades, Tolleris said. More than a quarter-million people went without electricity for at least 24 hours, some longer. And, on the 4th, strong north winds produced an uncommon ``Bay Effect'' snowfall of 6 to 7 inches as cold winds picked up moisture from the Chesapeake Bay and dumped it as snow on Norfolk.
It was all enough to make the season the 11th-snowiest since continuous weather observations began in Norfolk in 1871. Average snowfall locally is 7.6 inches, although many winters have gone by with barely a flake. The snowiest season came in the winter of 1979-1980, when major storms, including a blizzard, dumped 41.9 inches.
Tolleris said the other big event of '96 was the very active hurricane season. ``Three hits on the mid-Atlantic coast is a lot,'' he said. There were hurricanes Bertha, Fran and Tropical Storm Josephine.
All had a significant impact, with Fran causing catastrophic destruction as it came ashore in southeast North Carolina.
And if Tropical Storm Arthur, which was of minimal effect, is counted, that makes four. ``That would be the most ever'' in one year regionally, Tolleris said.
There were records set in 1996, although not many, and all of them were high temperature marks.
On May 20, a record high of 94.
On May 21, a record high of 98.
On Oct. 13, a record high of 84.
On Nov. 8, a record high of 81.
Despite that, summer was not unusually hot. The mercury slipped past the 90-degree mark only nine times: three in June, five in July and only one in August.
Underlining just how unusually mild it was, from July 19 to Aug. 24, the temperature never made it above the 80s.
The cool weather came in large part from frequent bouts of rain.
Hurricane Bertha, which made landfall as a Category 2 hurricane near Wilmington, N.C., on July 12, dumped more than 3 1/2 inches of rain in Hampton Roads as it passed through as a weaker tropical storm. That helped push the month's total rainfall well above normal. There were 20 days with at least some rain.
And while the remnants of Hurricane Fran brought less than a half-inch of rain to Norfolk as it passed in early September, much higher amounts occurred just inland.
In October, Tropical Storm Josephine made landfall over the Carolinas and was immediately caught up in a jet stream trough over the East Coast, which transformed the storm into a northeaster. Norfolk received more than 3 1/2 inches of rain.
On the flip side from the warm - if not hot - and wet days of summer and fall, November proved to be ``a very cold month,'' Tolleris said. It was the seventh-coldest on record. There were 11 days with high temperatures five or more degrees below normal. The month closed with subfreezing temperatures and an early frost.
``December proved to be a complete reversal of the November weather pattern,'' however, Tolleris said, ``with above-normal temperatures and only a few cold days.''
There were only five days when the mercury slipped to freezing or lower. ILLUSTRATION: WEATHER ALMANAC: 1996 IN HAMPTON ROADS
STEVE STONE
The Virginian-Pilot
GRAPHIC
[For a copy of the graphic, see microfilm for this date.]
KEYWORDS: WRAP-UP WEATHER 1996