Tag Archive for: Floods

Living with Extreme Floods in California

/in , , /by /California Water Blogby Peter Moyle, Jay Lund, Andrew L. Rypel, Carson Jeffres and Nicholas Pinter

Floods and their consequences are a reality for many worldwide, including those living in California. This reality is evidenced by pictures of people stranded on roofs surrounded by water, people paddling down water-filled streets in makeshift boats, and farm fields and orchards covered in standing water. However, there is also growing acceptance that floods are natural, recurring events that have positive aspects, especially where they support migratory waterfowl, enhance fisheries, and sustain wetlands and their high diversity of organisms (Mount et al 2023).

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Everything, Everywhere, All at Once: The Great Floods of 2023

/in , , /by /Bulletin of the Atomic Scientistsby Jessica McKenzie

Another week, another catastrophic, record-setting, history-making flood, this time in Kentucky.

Preliminary assessments indicate rainfall in Graves County last week likely set a new record for most precipitation in a 24-hour period, with 11.28 inches of rain. This would make it yet another “1,000-year” flood event, which had, according to historical projections, less than a 0.1 percent chance of occurring in any given year. One of the towns that experienced flash flooding was Mayfield, a community still rebuilding from a 2021 tornado that killed 57 people.

This was just one of the 11 flash flood emergencies in as many days in the United States, according to Weather Channel meteorologist Heather Zons. These events have claimed multiple lives: 2-year-old Mattie Shiels, 9-month-old brother, Conrad, and their mother, Katie Seley drowned after getting swept away by flash flooding in Pennsylvania, during an event that killed at least four others. In New York earlier this month, 43-year-old Pamela Nugent was swept away trying to evacuate a flooded area; 63-year-old Stephen Davoll drowned in his home in Vermont.

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Climate Change Leaves Fingerprints on July Heat Waves Around the Globe, Study Says

/in , , /by /APby Seth Borenstein

The fingerprints of climate change are all over the intense heat waves gripping the globe this month, a new study finds. Researchers say the deadly hot spells in the American Southwest and Southern Europe could not have happened without the continuing buildup of warming gases in the air.

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El Niño Increases Global Health Threats That Require a One Health Response

/in , /by /Bulletin of the Atomic Scientistsby Laura H. Kahn

According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), El Niño is here. Its arrival likely augurs an increased occurrence of health threats around the world. Brought on by deviations in sea-surface temperatures, El Niño negatively impacts human, animal, and plant health—and their interconnections. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), the changing atmospheric conditions brought on by El Niño will increase the risks for droughts, fires, floods, and storms that can lead to the increased incidence of vector-borne diseases, food insecurity, and heat stress, among other health threats.

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This Drought is Dead – Long Live the Drought

/in , , /by /California WaterBlogby Jay Lund and Andrew L. Rypel

Floods and droughts are not opposites and can occur simultaneously. This occurs often in California and is especially well-illustrated this year.

Floods, droughts, and water scarcity are different. Floods are too much water at a place and time, and we would often pay to reduce the water present at that location and moment. Droughts and water scarcity represent too little water at a place and time, meaning we would often pay to increase its availability. We highlight these differences because people tend to view such conditions through an unrealistic zero-sum lens. This essay uses this year’s experience to examine how floods, drought, and water scarcity differ, can occur in the same year, and how droughts might end, but leave legacies.

This California drought is largely over. Even though there is another month left in California’s wet season, the 2020-2022 California drought is largely over. Precipitation in all major basins of California exceeds averages for the entire water year. Snowpacks are well above April 1 averages (usually about the maximum for the year). Most reservoirs have more than average volumes stored for this time of year, and many are in flood operations. Only a few very large reservoirs (relative to their average inflows) remain below historical averages (such as Trinity at 50% and New Melones at 90% of their averages).

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Opinion: We Should Use Technology to Improve California’s Ability to Manage Floods, Water Supplies

/in , , /by /The San Diego Union-Tribuneby Sandra L. Kerl and Margaret Leinen Quoted: San Diego County Water Authority

Torrential rains are periodically pounding California this winter and putting a dent in the most extreme drought conditions of the past 1,200 years. While that’s a relief for some 40 million residents, it’s also a reminder of the feast-or-famine climate that rules California and creates major challenges for water managers.

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Rains, Mudslides Prompt Southern California Evacuations

/in , /by /Associated Pressby Stephanie Dazio

Thousands of residents were under evacuation and shelter-in-place orders early Tuesday after heavy rains unleashed mudslides in a mountain area east of Los Angeles that burned two years ago, sending boulders and other debris across roads.

Firefighters went street by street in the community of Forest Falls Monday night to make sure no residents were trapped. Eric Sherwin, spokesperson for the San Bernardino County Fire Department, said crews hadn’t found anyone who needed to be rescued and no one was reported missing. Crews would canvas the neighborhoods again and begin cleanup efforts after sunrise, he said.

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California: Drought, Record Heat, Fires and Now Maybe Floods

/in , , /by /AP News (via U.S. News and World Report)by Brian Melley

Californians sweated it out amid a record-breaking heat wave entering its 10th day Friday that has helped fuel deadly wildfires and pushed energy supplies to the brink of daily power outages.

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More Evidence that California Weather is Trending Toward Extremes

/in , , /by /Water News Network / UC San Diego News Centerby Rob Monroe Mentioned: San Diego County Water Authority

A team led by Kristen Guirguis, a climate researcher at Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego, found evidence that the risk of hazardous weather is increasing in the Southwest.

The researchers investigated the daily relationships among four major modes of weather affecting California. How they interact governs the formation of weather events such as atmospheric rivers capable of bringing torrential rains and Santa Ana winds that can spread devastating wildfires.

“This study suggests that weather patterns are changing in a way that enhances hot, dry Santa Ana winds, while reducing precipitation frequency in the Southwest,” said Guirguis. “These changes in atmospheric circulation are raising the risk of wildfires during California winters.”

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In the Wake of Fires and Floods

/in , /by /High Country Newsby Jonathan Thompson

The image that popped up on my Twitter feed last week was beyond alarming, it was  surreal: An entire house, a big one, sliding off its foundations and floating slowly down the muddy, swollen Yellowstone River. It was such an unexpected sight, so bizarre, that I could do little more than gawk at it, mutter an expletive and scroll down to the next crazy image of disaster.

But then I read the caption, and that stopped me: This wasn’t just some random building, it was an apartment complex that housed several Yellowstone National Park employees and their families.

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