2007 in review
N. Texas weathers storms
By BRYON OKADA
Star-Telegram staff writer
Star-Telegram/M.L. Gray
Megan Lipscomb, 8, stares at tornado destruction in Haltom City with her father, Andrew, a code enforcement officer for the city. The tornado killed one man and caused extensive damage on April 13.
In a normal year, three people die in North Texas from flash flooding.
By any reckoning 2007 was anything but normal. While the year may be remembered for tornadoes in North Texas -- including a deadly one in Haltom City -- flash floods during the rainiest days from March 30 to July 5 were especially deadly, with 21 people fatally washed away by floods, according to the National Weather Service office in Fort Worth. (Lightning strikes, tornado and heat caused the other five deaths directly related to weather this year.)
Here are instances when severe weather dominated the news this year:
The rain
1 Texas has a reputation for extreme weather. This year fit the bill.
When the year began, it seemed like we might never see rain again. After above-average rainfall in January, February was parched, as it had been for the previous two years. In late March meteorologists were still teetering about whether a harsh drought would plague the area with cracked river beds and wildfires for a third consecutive summer. The water level at Lake Bridgeport was 17 inches below normal.
Then it rained.
And in May a weak upper-level disturbance combined with copious amounts of tropical moisture made it rain harder.
And then in June it seemed like it might never stop raining.
On June 18, a pair of storm systems collided over far North Texas, dumping 8.5 inches of rain on Gainesville and 12 inches on Sherman. One family's trailer home was carried away by a raging nearby creek, killing three.
In the Hill Country -- called "flash flood alley" by some -- the rain fell even harder. In late June, Marble Falls got 19.5 inches of rain in nine hours. State and local officials were inundated with distress calls.
For 2007, Dallas/Fort Worth Airport has received 50.04 inches of rainfall -- the fifth time since 1899 the area reached 50 inches. A good chunk of that -- 22.59 inches -- fell in little more than two months, from May 1 through July 3. The Fort Worth office of the National Weather Service issued an "almost unprecedented" number of warnings. (For 2007, there were 55 tornado, 496 severe thunderstorm and 570 flash flood warnings issued.)
The lack of rain
2 So the late spring/early summer deluge put 2007 on the "wettest years ever" list.
On the other hand, August, October and November were all below normal for rainfall in North Texas. In the nearly six months since July 5, daily rainfall hit an inch only twice.
Meteorologists have placed parts of North Texas in the "developing drought" category, although it's too soon to tell whether it'll turn into a trend.
"It was so wet in the spring that it's going to end up as a wet year," said Bill Bunting, meteorologist-in-charge of the weather service's Fort Worth office. "But you know the old saying -- if you stand with one leg in a bucket of hot coals and the other leg in a bucket of ice, on average you're comfortable. It just goes to show how quickly we can flip the switch and go from one extreme to the other in Texas."
The mobile home park
3 When severe weather hit Tarrant County, it seemed to home in on Haltom City.
On June 17, flooding destroyed nine mobile homes in the Skyline Mobile Home Estates in Haltom City and caused moderate to severe damage to 90 others. A 4-year-old girl drowned.
As a resident since 1955, Haltom City Mayor Bill Lanford can remember a spring -- 1957 -- when the waters rose to the door of his house. This was worse.
"Certainly this was the worst to my knowledge," Lanford said.
The Skyline park, which was in a flood plain, was a chronic problem site; it had flooded as recently as March. After the June incident, Haltom City officials decided not to allow residents whose homes were destroyed or severely damaged to rebuild.
Prescience?
On July 3 a torrential afternoon downpour once again sent water over the banks of Whites Branch Creek and into the park.
Six months later, issues remain for the 11 uninhabited trailers left as debris in the flood zone. City officials are in the process of legal maneuvering to allow them to remove the former homes within a month or two, Lanford said.
Haltom City tornado
4 Severe storms caused about 600 tornadoes of varying destructive power in the Great Plains and South this year.
On April 13, two tornadoes were confirmed in a storm system that swept across Haltom City and northeast Fort Worth. This was a year when severe weather seemed to home in on Haltom City.
The Haltom City tornado was estimated to have wind speeds up to 110 mph -- weak as far as tornadoes go, meteorologists said. You couldn't tell from the damage.
Marc Patterson, 40, a Fort Worth air-conditioning repairman, was crushed under a lumber bin at his friend's lumberyard in Haltom City and died. A row of homes south of Texas 121 was completely wiped out. (It has since been cleared and is zoned commercial.) The Insurance Council of Texas estimated the damage from the tornadoes at $100 million.
The community rallied around the damaged area.
"Our neighbors all responded -- it was just phenomenal," Lanford said. Cities helped, as did private supporters. The Red Cross was there. The state responded. Although there were complaints about the bureaucracy of aid, the initial federal response was positive, officials said.
Valley Missionary Baptist Church in northeast Fort Worth was leveled by the tornado. Luckily, there had been no choir practice that night, as there usually was. Still, the loss was tangible. The church was considered the heart of the Garden of Eden neighborhood, Tarrant County's first African-American community. (Through anonymous donations, including help from several of the larger area churches, rebuilding is under way, pastor James Redd Jr. said.)
The hail
5 On April 13, severe weather wasn't limited to the Haltom City tornado.
Other residents shared in the misery. About 20,000 homes and 30,000 vehicles were damaged by hail. Seemingly everybody in northeast Fort Worth, Haltom City, North Richland Hills and Hurst had pock marks and dings, or worse. That Friday -- yep, a Friday the 13th -- 23,000 customers lost electricity.
Through early May, severe storms brought further peltings from the sky.
At one point, just about every city got hit with large hail. For example, Colleyville's hailstones were the size of tennis balls.
The Brazos
6 Hand-wringing turned to resignation in late June as the incessant rain swelled the Brazos River, then threatened to bust the water-supply reservoirs at Possum Kingdom Lake and Lake Granbury. As Possum Kingdom Lake filled, as many as four of nine spill gates were opened to release 275,283 gallons per second downstream. At Lake Granbury, as much as 374,025 gallons per second were released.It had to be done.
Not doing so would mean uncontrolled water flow, possibly damaging the dams and nearby property.
Downstream from the Morris Sheppard Dam, more than 2,000 residents were told to evacuate. Not everyone complied, fearing looters. As the Brazos River levels rose, large portions of the Horseshoe Bend and Rio Brazos neighborhoods were flooded. In less than 20 minutes, waters rose from outside yards to waist-deep inside homes. High-water rescues were done using personal watercraft and boats. Damage was widespread. One resident accidentally shot himself in the leg. Officers had to go in by boat to rescue him and take him to the hospital. Emergency services and law enforcement rolled around the clock for the better part of a week.
"My gosh, what can you really say about that?" Parker County Sheriff Larry Fowler said. "The amount of time and energy and manpower that had to go into that was remarkable."
The freak ice storm
7 In mid-January, just as the Fort Worth Stock Show and Rodeo was rounding into shape, a winter storm sent a shot of snow and ice blasting through. Forecasters said the ice would likely stay south of the Metroplex.
Nope.
The ice storm's center moved 50 miles up from the southwest -- putting the storm right on top of Fort Worth and Dallas. Ice mucked up traffic at the Fort Worth Mixmaster, on Texas 183 in Northeast Tarrant County, on Texas 360 in Arlington and on Loop 820 in Fort Worth and North Richland Hills. Inaccurate media reporting added to the confusion, as parents left work to pick up their children from school, believing some districts had closed when they hadn't.
On the good side, it was our one chance this year to make snowmen.
Texas: not cold, but cool
8 When the final numbers are in, it's likely that 2007 will wind up as the eighth-warmest year for the contiguous U.S. since national records began in 1895, according to the National Climatic Data Center. The year was marked by exceptional drought in the western U.S. (Remember the October wildfires that caused the largest evacuation in California history?) Through November, surface temperature for planet Earth was the fifth-warmest since records began in 1880. Heck, it was even frost-free in Nome, Alaska, from June through September.
Of course, one U.S. state -- Texas -- bucked that trend.
With all that rain during the summer months that are typically scorchers for us, we were the only state in the contiguous U.S. with below-average temperatures for the year.
We didn't get a white Christmas this year, but we did get snow flurries on Thanksgiving to go with our turkey.
Deaths, injuries
The Fort Worth office of the National Weather Service monitors an area roughly bounded by Waco, Killeen, Palestine, the Red River and Young County. Flash flooding was by far the deadliest severe-weather category in 2007, through Dec. 24. (Heat is a hard category to record accurately because of the many factors that contribute to such deaths.)
Floods
21 deaths, 4 injuries
March 13: One injured in Dallas County as flash flooding sweeps a car away.
March 30: One death in Palo Pinto County, a man driving near Possum Kingdom Lake killed by flash flooding. One death in Bell County, a boy swept away in floodwaters. One death in Tarrant County, a man washed into Marine Creek. One death in Van Zandt County, a man washed away by high water.
May 2: One woman drowned in a flash flood in Comanche County.
May 24: Four dead in Bell County, killed by flash flooding. Two dead in Coryell County, killed by flash flooding.
May 29: Two dead in Somervell County, killed by flash flooding.
June 17: One death in Tarrant County, flash flooding of a Haltom City mobile home park.
June 18: Two dead in Grayson County, flash flooding on Texoma Parkway and at an intersection. Three dead in Cooke County, drowned after a mobile home flooded, floated and hit a bridge.
June 26: One dead in Dallas County, killed by flash flooding in Garland.
July 2: Three injured in Tarrant County in a high-water rescue of children playing near Johnson Creek.
July 5: One death in Coryell County, a man who went to a fireworks display and was found in Cowhouse Creek.
Lightning
2 deaths, 2 injuries
March 13: One injury in Henderson County.
May 1: One death and one injury in Milam County.
May 2: One death in McLennan County.
Tornadoes
1 death, seven injuries
April 13: One man killed in Haltom City.
June 17: One injured in Lampasas County.
June 25: One injured in McLennan County. Five injured in Wise County near Decatur.
High winds
No deaths, two injuries
April 24: One injury in Lamar County, a person hit in the face by flying debris in high wind.
May 2: One injury in Hamilton County, a person trapped in mobile home during high winds.
Heat
2 deaths, no injuries
August 10: One death in Tarrant County
August 12: One death in eastern Metroplex.
Source: National Weather Service
