First about the rather strong storms that pushed through the area last night. Lightning and thunder accompanied storms that dropped heavy rain after 11pm last night in Salisbury. According to the NWS, locally heavy downpours averaged between 1-2 inches with up to 3 inches across southern Somerset County. The NWS also reported pea to marble size hail across southern Somerset County and along the Accomack/Northampton, VA county line.
Second...On this day in history, Hurricane Agnes made landfall in the Florida panhandle.
Agnes rainfall totals; courtesy wikipedia.com
After forming over the Yucatan Peninsula of Mexico on June 14th, Agnes became a hurricane over the southeastern Gulf of Mexico on June 18th. Agnes continued to move northward and arrived to Florida's panhandle as a Category 1 hurricane. Agnes then weakened to a depression over Georgia. It then moved over eastern North Carolina and regained tropical storm strength before moving back out into the Atlantic. A few days later, on June 22, Agnes made a final landfall near New York City just-under-hurricane-strength. The next day Agnes merged with a non-tropical low and affected the Northeast.
The major impact from Agnes was heavy rains (6-12 inches, locally 19 inches) that caused terrible flooding from the Carolinas to New York. So much fresh water was flushed into Chesapeake Bay that its seafood industry was badly damaged for several years. In an ironic twist, the flooding caused by Agnes lead to the creation of the federally financed Conrail railroad system.
Agnes caused 122 deaths in the United States...nine in Florida from severe thunderstorms while the remainder were associated with the flooding. Maryland had the highest per capita death toll of all five states declared disaster areas by President Nixon (Florida, Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, and New York).
The storm was responsible for $11.6 billion (after adjusting for inflation) in damage in the United States, making it the seventh costliest storm in US history. The name Agnes was retired from the list of Atlantic storm names, making it the only category 1 hurricane to be retired at the time, and one of 5 today.
Agnes information courtesy of wikipedia.com and theweathercompany.com
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