The Tropics have become increasingly active over the past week and bear watching to see if any of the systems pose a threat to the East Coast later this week and into the upcoming Labor Day weekend. Back in 1971, Tropical Storm Doria had a significant and damaging impact on the Tri-State Region. It was the 5th tropical storm of the 1971 season. On August 15th, it began as a tropical wave off the coast of Africa. It tracked westward for several days while slowly organizing itself. By August 23rd, the storm had become a tropical depression as it passed through the northern Lesser Antilles. It continued moving north of Puerto Rico, Hispaniola and The Bahamas. At this time, it began to show further signs of organization. The storm finally reached tropical storm status early on August 27th about 230 miles east of Daytona Beach, Florida and was given the name Doria. It reached it's peak of 65 mph winds during the day on the 27th as it made landfall near Morehead City, North Carolina. From there, the storm had eyes for our region as it quickly raced up the eastern seaboard toward our area. During the evening of the 27th into the morning hours of the 28th, Doria paralleled the eastern portion of New Jersey bringing torrential rains and strong gusty winds over 40 mph.
The storm dumped record amounts of rain throughout the Tri-State Region. Newark, New Jersey had a record 7.84 inches in a 24 hour period from the 27th-28th. Central Park, New York had a record 5.78 inches in the same 24 hour period. The winner for the most rainfall went to Little Falls, New Jersey with a whopping 10.29 inches. These record rains led to record-breaking river levels and widespread damaging floods throughout New Jersey. Streets and subways were flooded throughout New York City. The storm caused over 138 million dollars worth of damage in New Jersey alone in 1971 dollar values and 3 deaths. The storm capped off an active summer. The summer of 1971 went down in the top ten wettest summers at Central Park with a total of 18.88 inches of rainfall. Although the summer of 2010 overall has had below normal rainfall in our region, as Doria showed us in 1971, we can make it up in a hurry.
Meteorologist Iggy Camporeale
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Iggy: I remember this wild New Jersey rainstorm as well. Rain was pouring down in the towns along Route 22 in torrents, really walls of water. I was entering 3rd grade and school was about to start. There were several grade school age boys in the neighborhood and we must have needed to blow off steam cooped inside in all the rain. Our suburban mothers must have hit the phones and strategized. Soon they went to the closets finding our long rubber school slickers and hoods and had us hauling them on over our summer play clothes so as to be properly outfitted against the steamy cascades of monsoon rain. Then, rubber slickers and all, we were sent to the barber shop for our back to school haircuts. We slogged to the barbers and once there I remember us piling the raincoats in a chair. The relentless rain had sluiced right through to the inner linings of the steamy slickers on this tropical day.
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