Your Turn: Top Weather Stories of 2008?

2008 has been an active year in the weather department. What do you think are the most significant weather events during the past year? Across the U.S.? Internationally? Here in Alabama?

In the tropics, the Atlantic was busy. The sixteen named storms made it the sixth busiest season since 1851. Hurricane Ike was a headliner, bringing death and destruction to the upper Texas and Southwest Louisiana coast. An unprecedented six storms in a row made landfall in the United States. Fay made four separate U.S. landfalls.

Cuba, Jamaica and Haiti were especially hard hit by a series of hurricanes that wrought death and destruction with heavy rains, floods and mudslides.

It was a busy year for tornadoes, but not quite a record. It has also been a deadly year. There were some very significant tornadoes during the year across the U.S. and a big outbreak on an important political day.

Some places were prepared when the warnings came, like a school just over the border in Caledonia, Mississippi. Others, like a Boy Scout camp in Iowa had only scant seconds notice, despite the facts that warnings were excellent.

Snow fell in unusual places at unusual times. London, Bagdad and Las Vegas come to mind.

Most spots in Alabama got some relief from the severe drought that has gripped the state, but conditions were still extreme over parts of the Carolinas and Georgia.

I want everyone to weigh in with their significant weather events of 2008, from the state to the national to the international level.

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