Massive Thunderstorms Flood Mountains of Virginia

Torrential thunderstorms hit southeast Virginia on Friday, dumping up to a foot of rain in just four hours and flooding roads in Williamsburg and the Hampton Roads area.

Heavy rain fell in sections of the Virginia and West Virginia mountains. Thunderstorms or showers also fell in Florida, Louisiana, Texas, Oklahoma, New Mexico, Minnesota, Idaho and the Rockies.

Clear skies prevailed over the Great Lakes region and from the Pacific Northwest to Nevada and California. Skies were partly cloudy over New England and the upper Mississippi Valley.

Slow-moving or nearly stationary thunderstorms dumped nearly 11 inches of rain on Williamsburg, and the National Park Service reported 12 inches at nearby Yorktown Battlefield. Toano, Va., got six inches.

In addition to Williamsburg, flooding was reported in Hampton and Newport News, surrounding York County, and James City County.

The Norfolk area across the Hampton Roads waterway from York County missed most of the heavy rain, but Virginia Beach recorded two inches of rain in 15 minutes.

To the west, up to five inches of rain fell in mountainous Monroe County, W.Va., and neighboring Giles County, Va. Flooding closed many roads in western Giles County.

A flash flood watch issued for western Maryland, western Virginia and the eastern panhandle of West Virginia was in effect through Saturday morning.

The thunderstorms over eastern and southern Florida produced nickel-size hail in Ormond Beach. Thunderstorms along the Texas Coast extended into sections of southern Louisiana. Padre Island, Texas, got one to three inches of rain.

One to two inches of rain fell in four hours in sections of central and east-central Arizona, prompting a flash-flood watch for east-central Arizona.

A thunderstorm in southeast Idaho produced half-inch hail in McCammon and Lava Hot Springs that damaged gardens and field crops.

It was 59 degrees in Bakersfield, Calif., on Friday morning, breaking the low-temperature record for the date set in 1949 by one degree.

Temperatures around the nation at 3 p.m. EDT ranged from 50 degrees in Yellowstone National Park, Wyo., to 100 degrees in Yuma, Ariz. The morning low in the Lower 48 states was 33 degrees in Truckee, Calif.

The forecast for Saturday called for showers and thunderstorms widespread from southern New England to the Middle Atlantic States to the central Appalachians, North Carolina and southern Florida; widely scattered thunderstorms from the Gulf Coast to the lower Mississippi Valley, the Great Plains, and the Rockies, and scattered thunderstorms in Minnesota.

High temperatures were expected in the 70s along the northern Atlantic Coast and in the northern and central Appalachians, northern Minnesota, North Dakota, sections of the Rockies and along the Pacific Coast; in the 90s from Florida to southern sections of Georgia and Alabama, the lower Mississippi Valley, the southern Plains, sections of New Mexico, the inland valleys of California and southwest Oregon; 100 to 108 degrees in the desert Southwest, and in the 80s elsewhere.