Hurricane Bertha : July 5-14, 1996
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Hurricane Bertha : July 5-14, 1996
Filetype[PDF-1.41 MB]


Details:
  • Corporate Authors:
    United States, National Weather Service,
  • Description:
    "Hurricane Bertha was an early season Category 2 storm when it made landfall on the coast of North Carolina on July 12, 1996. Twelve deaths have been directly attributed to Bertha with United States damages estimated at $270 million. Extensive evacuations of vulnerable areas occurred in advance of Bertha, including 250,000 in North Carolina, 80,000 in South Carolina and 20,000 in Georgia. Revenue losses to the tourist industry approached $40 million. Bertha closely paralleled the southeast U.S. coast at a distance from 170 to 200 miles. This created multiple state involvement with almost all of the U.S. east coast involved with some watch or warning. The NHC's track forecast was very accurate with average forecast track errors 15 percent lower than the 10-year official track averages. Where the storm came ashore in North Carolina, watches and warnings were posted 65 hours and 47 hours before landfall, respectively, which far exceeds the NHC stated goals of 36 and 24 hours. Nevertheless, the coordination between NHC and emergency managers, regarding the issuances of watches and warnings, was frustrated by efforts to reconcile the meteorology of the event with state and local response requirements. Bertha's anticipated turn from a northwest direction to north-northwest as it approached the southeast coast was agonizingly slow. This put a great deal of pressure on the elected officials and Emergency Management Centers (EMCs) of Florida, South Carolina and North Carolina concerning what actions to take. This was also the first time the HLT had been fully deployed at the NHC. A Service Assessment Team was dispatched to the NHC as well as the impacted states to investigate these issues and to evaluate the HLT"--from the Executive Summary.
  • Keywords:
  • Document Type:
    Service Assessment
  • Place as Subject:
    Southern States
  • Collection(s):
    National Weather Service (NWS)
  • Main Document Checksum:
  • File Type:
    1. Filetype[PDF - 1.28 MB]
      Corporate Authors:
      United States, National Weather Service,
      Published Date:
      2012
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      Service assessment
      Description:
      "Large scale weather patterns allowed tropical moisture from the remnants of Tropical Storm Lee and the Atlantic Ocean to stream northward across the Mid-Atlantic Region, September 6-9, 2011. This pattern allowed continuous rain, very heavy at times,...
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      Description:
      "Super Typhoon Pongsona (Pong-sahn-WAH) was one of the most intense typhoons to ever strike the island of Guam. It was comparable to Super Typhoon Paka (1997) and was exceeded only by Karen (1962) and the Typhoon of 1900. Due to the magnitude of this...
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      Corporate Authors:
      United States, National Weather Service,
      Published Date:
      1998
      Series:
      Service assessment
      Description:
      "The devastating tornadoes that struck central Florida the night of February 22-23, 1998, resulted in a decision by the National Weather Service (NWS) to conduct a Service Assessment. Service Assessments and their subsequent reports are used by the N...
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      United States, National Weather Service,
      Published Date:
      2010
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      Service assessment
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      "A magnitude 8.0 earthquake occurred on September 29, 2009, 120 miles southwest of American Samoa. This major earthquake generated a tsunami that took many lives and caused significant destruction to neighboring islands in the Pacific Ocean. With onl...
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      Corporate Authors:
      United States, National Weather Service,
      Published Date:
      2011
      Series:
      Service assessment
      Description:
      "On April 27, 2011, a series of devastating tornadoes struck the southeastern United States. This tornado event was one of the deadliest in the country since systematic tornado record keeping began in 1950. With 316 fatalities (31 in Mississippi, 234...
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      Published Date:
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      "The October-November 2003 solar storms rank as one of the largest outbreaks of solar activity in recent history. The global effects were wide-ranging, impacting power grids, airline flights, spacecraft operations, and much more. Media interest and p...
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      United States, National Weather Service,
      Published Date:
      1997
      Series:
      Service assessment
      Description:
      "Fran was a category 3 hurricane on the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Scale when it made landfall on the North Carolina coast near Cape Fear on September 5, 1996. Besides sustained winds of 115 miles per hour (mph), the storm surge and high water marks to...
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    8. Filetype[PDF - 2.00 MB]
      Corporate Authors:
      United States, National Weather Service., Central Region,
      Published Date:
      2011
      Series:
      Service assessment
      Description:
      "On May 22, 2011, one of the deadliest tornadoes in United States history struck Joplin, Missouri, directly killing 158 people and injuring over 1,000. The tornado, rated EF-5 on the Enhanced Fujita Scale, with maximum winds over 200 mph, affected a ...
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      Published Date:
      2008
      Series:
      Service assessment
      Description:
      "From December 1 through December 3, 2007, three potent storm systems moved onshore along the Washington and Oregon coasts. These storms brought snow, hurricane force winds, coastal flooding, heavy rain and avalanches. Heavy rain and rapidly melting ...
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    10. Filetype[PDF - 1.19 MB]
      Corporate Authors:
      United States, National Weather Service., Central Region,
      Published Date:
      2006
      Series:
      Service assessment
      Description:
      "During the late evening of September 16, 2006, a tornado developed near Rogers, Minnesota. The tornado had an eight-mile long damage path across Hennepin and Anoka counties in eastern Minnesota. The Rogers tornado was rated F2 on the Fujita Scale (F...
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    11. Filetype[PDF - 5.28 MB]
      Corporate Authors:
      United States, National Weather Service,
      Published Date:
      2010
      Series:
      Service assessment
      Description:
      "Copious moisture drawn into the southeastern United States from the Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico produced showers and thunderstorms from Friday, September 18, through Monday, September 21, 2009. Rainfall amounts across the region totaled 5-7 inches, ...
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    12. Filetype[PDF - 2.40 MB]
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      Published Date:
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      Published Date:
      1999
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      Service assessment
      Description:
      "On May 3, 1999, one of the largest tornado outbreaks in history struck west-central Oklahoma and southern Kansas, killing48 people, leaving thousands homeless and resulting in over $1 billion in property damage. Due to the magnitude of this event, t...
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    14. Filetype[PDF - 3.73 MB]
      Corporate Authors:
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      Published Date:
      2003
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      Service assessment
      Description:
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    15. Filetype[PDF - 5.38 MB]
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      United States, National Weather Service.. United States, National Weather Service,.
      Published Date:
      2000
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      Description:
      "Hurrican Floyd impacted the U.S. East Coast from September 14 to 17, 1999. Torrential rains caused major river and flash flooding from the Carolinas to New England. In some areas, particularly North Carolina, the magnitude of the flooding was unprec...
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    16. Filetype[PDF - 5.14 MB]
      Corporate Authors:
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      Published Date:
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      Description:
      "Copious amounts of tropical moisture flowed northward from the Pacific Ocean and Gulf of Mexico into eastern Colorado on September 9-16, 2013. The combination of a slow moving upper-level system over the Great Basin region, favorable upslope easterl...
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    17. Filetype[PDF - 496.21 KB]
      Corporate Authors:
      United States, Office of Hydrology,
      Published Date:
      1998
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      Service assessment
      Description:
      "A NWS evaluation team was sent to the Ohio River Valley following severe weather events in early March of 1997 that produced extensive flash flooding and record river flooding across the region. The team focused on the hardest hit areas in the Ohio ...
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    18. Filetype[PDF - 2.72 MB]
      Personal Author:
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      Published Date:
      2015
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      Description:
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    19. Filetype[PDF - 2.82 MB]
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      Published Date:
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      Description:
      "On October 22-29, 2012, Hurricane/Post-Tropical Cyclone Sandy moved from the Caribbean to the U.S. Eastern Seaboard, ultimately making landfall near Brigantine, NJ, around 7:30 p.m. on October 29. The storm resulted in an enormous impact to life and...
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    20. Filetype[PDF - 1.21 MB]
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      Published Date:
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