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One for the history book

Posted at 2:33 PM on September 4, 2008 by Craig Edwards


I was working the forecast desk at the Indianapolis NWS office in the summer of 1979. The team of meteorologists had watched as the first hurricane named after a male faded over the lower Mississippi Valley into a tropical depression. This mid-July hurricane came on the Gulf shore as only a category one, with winds just more than 75 mph.

Emerging computer models and pre-Doppler radar were the tools of the trade, along with a few surface reporting stations. Most of our twenty-four hour rainfall reports arrived from cooperative weather observers between 7am and 8am.

I confidently predicted a steady overnight rain as the remains of Hurricane Bob traveled toward the Ohio Valley. Radar was already painting a solid rain shield, but no thunderstorms. Satellite imagery was still quite crude as noted in the archive file on Bob.

Short history of Hurricane Bob, 1979

Well, the short story. This tropical depression deposited rainfall of up to seven inches to the southwest of Indianapolis. I conducted a post assessment of the model data and noted that this tropical system, while not triggering thunder, certainly produced a prolonged period of steady heavy to moderate rain. The greatest rainfall totals occurred just to the east and northeast of the mid level circulation.

Rainfall totals from the remains of Hurricane Gustav totaled more than six inches at Little Rock, Arkansas

Hurricane Bob presented a teachable moment. I was congratulated by my superiors for documenting how we might improve on the computer model forecast in the future.
CE

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