Late July and early August 2015 were extremely wet and stormy in the Tampa Bay area. I’m sure some of you want to forget what happened during that time as many homes were flooded and lives were changed.
- Reverse summertime pattern resulted in a wet summer last year
- Little severe weather, mainly heavy rain
- Southwest Pasco County hit hard
The weather couldn’t be more different from the hot and rather dry conditions were are experiencing in late July 2016.
Last year, the wet pattern started in late July with a shift to an onshore wind. This “reverse summertime pattern” is often wet and not with just afternoon thunderstorms. Actually, morning and midday rains can be heavy in this reverse pattern.
In 2015, a series of upper level disturbances along with the very moist onshore wind caused round after round of rain and thunderstorms. There was little severe weather, it was mainly just heavy rain.
The area of southwest Pasco County was hard hit by being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Flooding started on the last Thursday in July with a heavy rain event. It continued on Saturday with Tampa getting extensive street flooding. The situation took a little break on Sunday then another round of flooding hit the area on Monday August 3rd, 2015. In 10 days, some areas had close to 20 inches of rain
Many who were flooded did not have flood insurance. Some were far enough inland to not be required to get insurance and were in regions that hadn’t flooded before. The Anclote River near Elfers was hardest hit.
For those of us in the Bay News 9 Weather Department, it was about 10 days of very hard work to keep you safe. A rewarding experience but something we don’t want to go through any time in the near future again.
Some of the pictures from last summer:
