Weekly Wrap-Up: Damaging Storms Blast Seattle, Phoenix; Record Trio of Category 4 Hurricanes Churns in Pacific

By Kevin Byrne, AccuWeather.com Staff Writer

September 4,2015; 10:28AM,EDT

 

 

The northwest and southwestern United States were targeted by gusty, damaging storms, while a rare tropical feat occurred in the Pacific this week.
Last Saturday, a strong storm system, bringing rain and powerful winds, pummeled western Washington.
Puget Sound Energy reported that nearly 224,000 electric customers, many of which were located around Tacoma and Seattle, were without power on Saturday afternoon. King5 News in Seattle reported that two people were killed, one as a result of a falling tree, and another due to a falling tree limb.
Bright colors burst in Glendale, Arizona, from a distant thunderstorm on Aug. 30, 2015. (Photo/smsunder/AccuWeather Photo Gallery)
Over 70,000 electric customers were without power in the Phoenix metropolitan area Monday evening as a severe thunderstorm tracked over the region. Customers with no electricity and air conditioning endured triple-digit heat through the first part of the week.Flash flooding was also reported in the early week storms.
According to the National Weather Service Office in Phoenix, from 7 to 9 p.m. local time, there were over 4,000 in-cloud lightning flashes over the city.
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After slamming the Caribbean, Tropical Storm Erika eventually weakened well before it could make landfall in Florida. However, remnant moisture from Erika, along with a non-tropical system, drenched areas from Florida to the South Carolina coast through midweek.
The second Atlantic hurricane of the year formed when Fred developed off the coast of Africa. It was eventually downgraded to a tropical storm on Monday night, but impacted the Cape Verde Islands into Tuesday.
Fred is the farthest east a hurricane has formed on record in the Atlantic Ocean, according to AccuWeather Hurricane Expert Dan Kottlowski.
"Fred was only the third known hurricane to impact the Cape Verde Islands," Kottlowski said.
At one point, there were three Category 4 hurricanes churning in the Pacific: Kilo, Ignacio and Jimena. All three remained well away from land, although Ignacio enhanced surf in Hawaii.
A trio of Category 4 hurricanes occurred in the Pacific on Saturday, Aug. 29, 2015: Kilo, Ignacio and Jimena. This was the first time on record that there were three Category 4 hurricanes at the same time in the central and eastern Pacific basins. (Image/NASA). Kilo, which formed back on Aug. 20 in the central Pacific, crossed into the western Pacific Basin and is now classified as a typhoon.
Tropical Depression 14-E formed in the East Pacific, several hundred miles southwest of Mexico on Monday. It eventually became Tropical Storm Kevin on Thursday.
Several AccuWeather meteorologists and staff writers contributed content to this article.

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