Weekly Wrap-Up: First Snowfall Coats Midwest, Northeast; Powerful Typhoons, Hurricanes Prowl Across Pacific

By Kevin Byrne, AccuWeather.com Staff Writer

October 23,2015; 11:45PM,EDT

 

 

Parts of the Northeast and Midwestern United States experienced a taste of winter last weekend as cold air invaded both regions. Some locations even had their first snowfall of the season.
AccuWeather Meteorologist Ben Noll said most of the snow fell from the Great Lakes into New England, with localized accumulations of a few inches.
The temperature roller coaster continued throughout the week in the Northeast. Poughkeepsie, New York, set a new record low on Monday morning with a temperature of 21 degrees Fahrenheit. By Wednesday, the city was just a few degrees shy of its daily record high, 81 F.

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Destructive Typhoon Koppu, known as Lando in the Philippines, claimed at least 43 lives in the country according to the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council of the Philippines. The storm reached super typhoon status late in the evening of Saturday, Oct. 17, which is an intensity similar to that of a Category 4 hurricane in the Atlantic.
The storm made landfall early Sunday morning local time near Casiguran, Aurora, which sits on the eastern coastline of Luzon. Even as Koppu weakened, it still delivered life-threatening flooding to parts of the country. In the city of Baguio, over 1,000 mm (40 inches) of rain had fallen by Tuesday morning, local time.
Olaf became the 11th hurricane in the East Pacific this season after strengthening from a tropical storm on Monday. The storm reached peak strength as a Category 4 hurricane on Monday, but remained well away from Hawaii as it reached the Central Pacific.
Accompanying Olaf in the Pacific was Patricia, which formed on Tuesday and grew into a powerful hurricane by late in the week.
The most recent satellite imagery of Patricia spinning in the Eastern Pacific (NOAA/Satellite).
Patricia will go down in the record books as the strongest hurricane ever recorded in the Western Hemisphere.
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Late last week, heavy rain in Southern California caused flooding and mudslides along Interstate 5 in Los Angeles County, stranding motorists and shutting down portions of the roadway. This week, more storms targeted the Southwest and similar problems occurred in Arizona after a motorist became stranded in rising floodwaters.
Several AccuWeather meteorologists and staff writers contributed content to this article.

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