Storm

JUNE IS the official start of hurricane season in the United States, and while the year's first tropical storm is nowhere in sight, the news is already bad. Computer models suggest that a warming Atlantic Ocean and a possible El Nino in the Pacific this summer could cause the season to be worse than usual - with perhaps 15 named storms, including eight hurricanes, instead of the customary 10 storms and six hurricanes. There are no guarantees that any of this will come to pass, of course, but the forecasters have a pretty good record.

The Firestone Indy Lights car started the ontrack action on time Saturday morning and things were running smoothly, until a storm cloud passed over the Baltimore Grand Prix course around 10:30. Officials cleared the grandstands in anticipation of lightning and cars stopped running. Fans headed to protected areas under awnings and into the Convention Center, to check out what was inside. "I was impressed by their attitudes," said Mary Kay Carver, a greater, who was advising people of suite locations and telling them how to find the IZOD IndyCar paddock in the bottom of the building if they had passes – or wanted to buy passes to get a look at the teams' work area.

Meteorologists are tracking a storm that could reach Maryland by Friday afternoon and leave behind as much as a foot of snow by the time it ends on Saturday. "This one certainly has some credentials," said Steve Zubrick, science and operations officer at the National Weather Service forecast office in Sterling, Va. "It's probably the best-looking chance for measurable snow we've had since December." Zubrick was cautious. "We would be looking at a potential for more than 4 inches in some parts of the Mid-Atlantic region," he said.

Nothing makes a generator look more tempting than a days-long power outage in a 100-degree heat wave. Arnold Friedlander's Winn Electric Contracting in Timonium was so flooded with calls that staffers are still working their way through the backlog of requests for estimates and installations. Selling and setting up home-standby generators — the non-portable kind — is a regular but usually small slice of the company's work, which ranges from lighting to computer wiring. Then the damaging derechoblew through the region June 29, leaving about 675,000 in the Baltimore area without power, some for nine days.

As of midday Friday, forecasters at the National Weather Service in Sterling, Va., were uncertain that the Baltimore area would see any thunderstorms at all later in the evening. Without a cold front or a low-pressure system in place, they lacked the markers that would guarantee violent weather. If a disturbance did occur, however, all the heat and humidity in the lower atmosphere would serve as fuel. "We knew that any thunderstorm that did develop could become severe," said Stephen Konarik, a meteorologist with the weather service.

Storm trackers are continuing to refine their predictions for a nor'easter set to strike Maryland later this week, calling for strong rain and wind on Wednesday - most heavily along the Eastern Shore - and possibly snow on Thursday. "We're not looking at Sandy-type numbers, but it looks like this thing could pack a pretty good punch," said Steve Goldstein, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service, about what residents can expect from the storm on the heels of superstorm Sandy's pounding.

More than 10,000 homes in the metro Baltimore region -- valued at a total of $3.5 billion -- are at risk for potential storm-surge damage, according to housing market analysis firm  CoreLogic.  "Hurricane-driven storm-surge flooding can cause significant property damage when high winds and low pressure causes water to amass inside the storm, releasing a powerful rush over land when the hurricane moves on shore," said CoreLogic, which made...

Last weekend's record December snowfall cost the Maryland Department of Transportation a budget-busting $26.9 million for snow removal, Transportation Secretary Beverley K. Swaim-Staley said Tuesday. The storm, which dumped an estimated 16 inches to 26 inches on parts of the state, required an expensive response by all of the department's operating agencies. The largest share was accounted for by the highway agency, with $20 million in costs. After several earlier snowfalls, the SHA's spending on snow removal has reached $27 million this season - exceeding its budget of $26 million with almost three months of winter to go, according to MDOT.

Whether it has been Ravens officials, opposing quarterbacks, or media members, Ed Reed has a knack for keeping everybody guessing. Speaking from a personal perspective, you never know where the conversation will turn when you stick a microphone or camera in his face -- like last season when the free safety interrupted one postgame press conference to give a shout-out to the United States for winning the President's Cup. It's easy to say that Ed...

The night of June 29, while vacationing in Maine, our house was hit by a large trunk sheared off from a tree in the back yard. It came through the roof above our bed and could have killed my wife. Lesson learned: with present-day violent storms, stay downstairs. Our neighbor on the right saw branches on the roof and called us. Her friend Nico, a petite woman born in Peru, climbed on the top roof, against our protestation, and reported the large gaping hole. We called Marc our neighbor on the left, who took the picture.