39 years later: Devastating storms share many similarities

By Edward Lewis elewis@timesleader.comStaff Writer

Aunt Agnes and nephew Lee.

The two storm systems separated by 39 years share many similarities; both formed off the coast of the Yucatan Peninsula of Mexico in the western Caribbean Sea and followed nearly the same path north before stalling over Northeastern Pennsylvania and causing record flooding of the Susquehanna River.

The memory of the 1972 flood is still so fresh that when the river rapidly rose and mandatory evacuations were ordered on Sept. 7 and 8, Luzerne County officials warned residents to expect an Agnes-type flood. It was that and then some.

Several days of rain from Agnes caused the river to crest at 40.9 feet in Wilkes-Barre on June 24, 1972, breaching levees in Forty Fort and Wilkes-Barre and causing billions in damages.

A strengthened levee system protected most of the Wyoming Valley when Tropical Depression Lee dumped heavy rain over three days, raising the water depth to 42.6 feet, breaking the Agnes crest record.

Lee started out innocuously. A tropical wave was first detected by weather forecasters off the Yucatan Peninsula on Aug. 31. It developed into a tropical depression and was given the name Lee on Sept. 1.

Moving north into the Gulf of Mexico, just as Agnes did, Lee became a Tropical Storm when wind speeds reached 45 mph the next day.

Lee, which never became strong enough to be classified a hurricane, made landfall on Sept. 5 just west of Pecan Island, La.

“Lee was a very slow-moving storm from the start,” said Joanne LaBounty, a meteorologist for the National Weather Service in Binghamton, N.Y., which provides weather services for Northeastern Pennsylvania. “When it became a tropical storm and made landfall in Louisiana, the forecast wasn’t sure where it was going to turn.”

Lee eventually moved north and northeast, slowed down almost to a stop over central Pennsylvania by a high pressure system in the west, LaBounty said.

Light rain began falling on Sept. 4 and became heavier in the following days when a hurricane far in the distance got into the mix.

“Then you had Hurricane Katia well off the Atlantic coastline. Moisture from Katia, even though it was far off the coast, got caught up with Lee and it all moved almost directly north from Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania and New York. It was a constant stream of moisture that sat in the same place for 24 to 48 hours. That’s why there was all the heavy rain over Pennsylvania.”

Isolated areas in the upper Susquehanna River Basin of southern New York and Pennsylvania received nearly 12 inches of rain from 8 a.m. on Sept. 6 to 8 a.m. on Sept. 8. Rainfall totals for Luzerne County averaged 5 to 6 inches to the east and 8 to 10 inches in the west, NWS records say.

Agnes dropped generally 7 to 10 inches of rain across the region, with reports of nearly 18 inches of rain in isolated areas in Pennsylvania and New York.