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Hurricane Agnes was the first tropical storm and first Hurricane of the 1972 Atlantic Hurricane Season . A rare June hurricane, it made landfall on Florida before moving northeastward and ravaging the Mid-Atlantic region as a tropical storm. The worst damage occurred along a swath from central Maryland through central Pennsylvania to the southern Finger Lakes region of New York , as illustrated by the rainfall map below. Agnes brought heavy rainfall along its path, killing 129 and causing $11.6 billion (2005 US Dollars ) in damage. At the time, it was the most damaging hurricane ever recorded, surpassing Hurricane Betsy , and it would not be surpassed until Hurricane Frederic in 1979. STORM HISTORY The large disturbance was first detected over the Yucatán Peninsula of Mexico on June 14 . The system drifted eastward and became a tropical depression later that day and a tropical storm over the northwestern Caribbean on the 16th. Agnes turned northward on June 17 and became a Hurricane over the southeastern Gulf Of Mexico the next day. A continued northward motion brought Agnes to the Florida Panhandle coast on June 19 as a Category 1 hurricane. Agnes turned northeastward after landfall and weakened to a depression over Georgia . However, it regained Tropical Storm strength over eastern North Carolina on June 21 and moved into the Atlantic later that day. A northwestward turn followed, and a just-under-hurricane-strength Agnes made a final landfall on June 22 near New York City . The storm merged with a non-tropical low on June 23 , with the combined system affecting the northeastern United States until June 25 . http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/archive/storm_wallets/atlantic/atl1972-prelim/agnes/prelim05.gif IMPACT Agnes was barely a hurricane at landfall in northward to New York , with other flooding occurring over the western portions of the Carolinas . (from Hurricane Agnes Rainfall and Floods, June-July 1972) Some of the worst flooding was along the Genesee River , the Canisteo River , and the Chemung River in southwestern and south central New York. The latter two flow into the Susquehanna River , and most of the severe flooding took place throughout the Chesapeake/Susquehanna watershed. Flooding set a flood record at, and threatened to overtop, the Conowingo Dam near the mouth of the Susquehanna in Maryland . The worst urban damage occurred in Elmira, New York and Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania , but many other communities along the rivers suffered great losses. The Delaware River and Potomac River basins also had some flooding. So much fresh water was flushed into Chesapeake Bay that its seafood industry was badly damaged for several years; freshwater intolerant species such as jellyfish became largely non-existent in the upper and mid bay. http://bayville.thinkport.org/printables/timeline.pdf#search=%22chesapeake%20bay%20seafood%20agnes%22 .]] Rainfall in the and throughout the Ohio River Valley , where rivers crested 11 feet above flood stage on June 24 after nearly a foot of rain fell in parts of Western Pennsylvania over the course of three days.http://www.lrp.usace.army.mil/pao/h-agnes.htm Agnes caused 122 deaths in the United States. Nine of these were in Florida (mainly from severe thunderstorms) while the remainder were associated with the flooding. The storm was responsible for $2.1 billion in damage (1972 , where seven additional deaths occurred. After adjustment for inflation, Agnes is the seventh costliest storm in United States history with a total of $11.6 billion (2005 US Dollars ). http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/gifs/table3b.gif |
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