This is the Department of Commerce Homepage

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration

Climate-Watch, October 2001

National Climatic Data Center - (last update October 31, 2001)


NOAA Homepage
Hurricane Iris

Hurricane Iris (Category 4) Off the Belize Coast- October 8th, 2001

separation bar

Top of Page Review - Hurricane Iris

Hurricane Iris was a category 4 hurricane as she struck the Belize coast on October 8th, 2001. The storm, as of late Tuesday (9th), was downgraded to a tropical depression over the mountains of eastern Mexico and weakening. The fast forward speed of the storm prohibited extensive flooding along its path. This storm was much different than Hurricane Keith which struck the same area just about one year ago with almost two feet of rain in parts of Belize. In Belize, at least 11 people are dead due to Hurricane Iris, the victims were among 28 people who were on a boat at Big Creek Port, officials said. Nine additional people were missing; eight are known to be safe. The storm left 900 people homeless, said Prime Minister Said Wilbert Musa. The storm ripped across the country's southern coast, where a full-strength hurricane has not hit in nearly 60 years, said Stewart Krohn, news director of Belize City's Channel 5.

See the National Hurricane Center's Frequently Asked Questions page for additional information about Hurricanes and Tropical Storms.

Weather Log - October 1 - 10, 2001

The featured image in this months report was Hurricane Iris fortunately the storm was a quick mover as it crossed the Belize coast. The fast movement inhibited the deepest convection with the storm from moving slowly across a region.

In contrast, snow fell over the upper peninsula of Michigan on the 6th and 7th of the month. Marquette, Mi officially picked up 4.2 inches of slushy snow while Carlshend, MI in Marquette county picked up 7.0 inches of snow.. The snow was accompanied by cold air and morning low temperatures were in the teens across parts of northern North Dakota, and the northern Great Lakes region during this period as well.

Weather Log - October 11 - 20, 2001

According to Red Cross sources, at least 38 people died when a cyclonic depression caused heavy rainfall and havoc in India's southeastern state of Andhra Pradesh on Wednesday (17th) . Thirty-eight people have been killed and another 23 are reported missing. The rainfall is said to be the region's heaviest in four years. Army helicopters were summoned to carry out relief operations in the coastal districts of Kurnool, Chittoor, Ananthapur, Cuddapah and Nellore. Cuddapah district is the worst affected in the state and completely submerged under water.

Weather Log - October 21 - 31, 2001

Heavy rains this past month have flooded large areas of the Argentine Pampas causing the evacuation of 4.000 people. According to media reports, the hardest-hit area was the fertile farming regions of Buenos Aires province, where thousands of acres of fields and grazing lands are submerged, officials said. Officials are projecting more than $ 300 million in damages, the lieutenant governor of Buenos Aires province, said that half the province is under water, calling it some of the worst flooding in decades. Authorities estimate more than 8.6 million acres are under water. In many places, farmers rowed about their properties in small boats, and cattle stood knee-deep in water. Authorities have declared 59 of the 134 districts that make up Argentina's Buenos Aires province "disaster areas." Furthur west in Argentina, the flooding had also encroached on large parts of the central provinces of Cordoba, Santa Fe and La Pampa.

Flooding also has taken its toll of lives in southeast Asia. According to media reports, as of the 23rd, storms and floods have killed at least 326 people, mostly children, in the Mekong Delta and central Vietnam in the last few weeks. The graph below highlights the conditions for Vinh, Vietnam which is along the coastal plain in the northern part of the country, where over 27 inches of rain has fallen during the 23rd through the 27th of the month! If you click on the larger image text under the graph, a graph of precipitation and daily dewpoint information are available. The monthly mean dew point has been in the mid 70's F. range most of the month.

Daily Precipitation Time Series, October 2001 - Vinh, Vietnam
larger image 		Floods in the 12-province Mekong Delta since August had killed at least 310 people by late Sunday (21st) , 243 of them children, the Thanh Nien (Young People) newspaper reported. The paper also reported that more than 313,000 houses, home to 1.56 million people, had been inundated and waters, receding slowly in areas bordering Cambodia, were still above the danger level. Natural disasters killed more than 730 people in central Vietnam in the last two months of 1999. Last year's floods were the worst in decades, killing 480 people, most of them children.

An early season blizzard piled snow in drifts up to 2 feet high in North Dakota on the 24th, closing schools and stranding hundreds of drivers. Snow isn't that unusual at the end of October, across the Northern Plains but the amount of snow and the extent of the snow fall was. Media reports also indicated that in the warm sector of the storm, thunderstorms across Indiana killed one person and injured 14 others.

Note: Hazard event satellite images available courtesy of NOAA OSEI Satellite Images WWW site.

separation bar

Top of Page Selected U.S. City and State Extremes

The Selected U.S. City and State Extremes provides a list of new monthly or unusual records that were set across the U.S. during October 2001.

separation bar

Top of Page Additional Resources

separation bar For further information, contact:

Tom Ross
NOAA/National Climatic Data Center
151 Patton Avenue
Asheville, NC 28801-5001
phone:828-271-4499
fax: 828-271-4328
email: tom.ross@noaa.gov
Specific requests for climatic data should be addressed to: ncdc.info@noaa.gov

Top of Page Top of Page