Fall Tropical Storms Can Be Deadly

Some of the deadliest hurricanes in Atlantic history have been late season Caribbean storms. Their horrific death and destruction has come from flooding. The fourteenth named storm of the 2007 North Atlantic Hurricane Season may go down as another in the Hall of Infamy.

Tropical Storm Noel has been meandering slowly just south of the island of Hispaniola. With the strongest convection forming on the north side of the storm, torrential rainfall amounts have been falling over Haiti and the Dominican Republic. This heavy rainfall may continue through the day on Monday. The mountainous terrain over the southern part of the island may exacerbate the problem. Life threatening mudslides will occur.

Hurricane Fifi in September 1974 caused as many as 10,000 deaths as it tracked along the north coast of Honduras. Flora claimed 7,000 lives in disastrous flooding as it meandered for nearly five days along the southern coasts of Hispaniola and eastern Cuba. An amazing 90 inches of rain fell at Velasco.

In October 1998, Hurricane Mitch brought untold sorrow to Honduras and Nicaragua with flooding rains that ripped out infrastructure in both nations. Over 9,000 people perished.

In 2004, Hurricane Jeanne weakened as it approached the island of Hispaniola. It meandered along the north coast of the island as a tropical depression, dumping torrential amounts of rainfall and causing serious mudslides in the northern mountains. Three thousand people perished.
Hopefully, we will not see a repeat performance of the disastrous rainfall events in southern Haiti and the Dominican Republic.

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