Tropical Storm’s Remnants

Drenched Area Amid High Winds

By Andrew Gorosko

The remnants of Tropical Storm Nicole, coupled with the action of an advancing weather front, combined to drop several inches of rain on the area amid high winds on Thursday, September 30, and Friday, October 1.

Meteorologist Gary Lessor, the assistant director of The Weather Center at Western Connecticut State University in Danbury, said that between 4 am on September 30, and 2 pm on October 1, more than 3.6 inches of rain fell at the weather station at Danbury Airport.

About 2.7 inches of that rainfall fell during the 14-hour period from midnight to 2 pm on October 1, he noted.

How much rain fell at a given place was variable, Mr Lessor said, noting that higher or lower amounts fell in various sections of the region. Rainfall statistics were not available for Newtown.

The highest wind speed recorded at the university’s midtown campus on October 1 was 42 miles per hour. The highest wind speed on September 30 was 39 miles per hour, he said.

Across the state, rainfall amounts had been predicted to range from two inches to six inches. The highest amount of rainfall recorded in the state was in Falls Village, where more than five inches of rain fell, Mr Lessor said.

Connecticut did not suffer the brunt of the storm, with other states receiving higher rainfall totals, he said.

Local volunteer fire companies were busy during the two-day stormy period, responding to many reports of electric lines falling in scattered areas due to trees hitting power lines during the high winds and heavy rains.

The fire companies responded to 14 reports of “wires down” during the two-day period, with ten of those calls coming on October 1.

Connecticut Light & Power Company (CL&P) spokesman Mitch Gross said that at the height of storm-related local power outages, which was just after 10 pm on September 30, there were 139 CL&P customers in Newtown without electricity.

The number of outages had dropped to 61 by 3:40 pm on October 1, as CL&P work crews continued to repair electric lines damaged by the storm, he said.

There are about 10,813 CL&P customers in Newtown. The utility has about 1.2 million customers statewide.

Newtown Police Sergeant Domenic Costello said that the storm created no major problems locally. The bad weather resulted in some trees being brought down, he added.

Fred Hurley, town director of public works, said that the heavy rains caused some ponding over the edge of Boggs Hill Road alongside a major swamp located near Boggs Hill Road’s intersection with Palestine Road. The ponding there was about six inches deep, he said.

A town work crew went to the scene about 7 am October 1, to clear some drainage ways and alleviate the problem, he said.

Knowing that heavy rains were on the way, town work crews on September 30 had traveled throughout town to ensure that various drainage ways were clear to reduce the potential for trouble when the heavy rains arrived, he said.

One work crew removed a drainage grating on Cemetery Road in Dodgingtown to prevent flooding problems from occurring there, he said.

Town employees also cleared a blocked drainage way on Button Shop Road to prevent flooding, he said.

The workers removed leaf blockages from scores of stormwater catch basin gratings across town to prevent flooding, he said. Such work involves using shovels and rakes to make sure that stormwater running alongside curbing enters catch basins, instead of flooding roads  

If the heavy rains had come several weeks later into the fall, when more leaves were on the ground, there would have been much more ponding on the roads, according to Mr Hurley.

Mr Hurley noted that if the weather patterns been different during the storm, weather conditions could have been much worse in the area.

“What could have been a very big storm ended up as a routine storm,” Mr Hurley said.