It was just over a year ago when the remenants of Hurricane Ike made its way through norther Ohio. Its passage caused large tree to fall producing power outages all over the area. Winds were clocked at over 70 mph. Insurance claims amounted to more than $1.1 billion across the state. The local cleanup cost an addition $40 million. The second costliest storm ever to hit the state of Ohio. Almost 2 million lost power. Six people died as a result.





Why did this tropical system make its way all the way to Ohio?

and

Has it ever happened before?

First, let examine what happened last year. The hurricane had fallen apart shortly after it made landfall but it still had tons of moisture and rain with it. It still had a decent circulation (low pressure) so it continued to survive well inland. Ike linked up with a cold front and rode it northeastward.



The high to the east help in steering it. The pressure difference between the high to the east and the cold front/tropical system helped increase the winds to almost hurricane strength.



Check out the satellite picture which shows "Ike" and the cold front.



Here are the peak wind gusts across northeastern Ohio.



While the winds were strong, this has happened before especially during the winter. So why did it cause so many trees to become uprooted?

Two days before the high winds, much of northeastern Ohio received more than 2 inches of rain. Much of it fell over a 24 hour period.



The ground was super-saturated so once the winds hit between 40 and 60 mph, the leaves still on the trees acted as a sail catching the wind pushing the trees over easily.

Looking back, if there was NO COLD FRONT or NO HEAVY RAINFALL DAYS BEFORE or if this would have occured in the middle of the winter when the trees have no leaves and the ground was frozen, the remains of Ike would have died a quick death and northeastern Ohio would have been spared.