Major Flooding

[Dustin Wilcox]

Suprised there hasn't been any disscussion regarding this (maybe there has and I just missed it) but the heavy rain fall over a vast area has created some major flooding issues. While browsing I came across this Gauge, its one thing to meet the record but to top it by 2.5 feet is insane.

 

[rdale]

There's mention of it in the chase thread. And before getting too excited about record exceeding - you need to know when the record was set... Someone got excited about river levels in one of the chatrooms yesterday, until they realized the gauge had only been there a few years

 

[Stephen Levine]

Almost like being Inside the Thunderhead itself

Driving back to the DFW area on Tuesday morning after my Monday's hunt in Abilene, I was hoping that the weather system would hold back long enough for me to experience it upclose and personal and see some lightning.

My wish was granted by Creator, as I first intercepted it near Ft. Worth.
The dusk-like darkness and blinding rains along with occasional lightning was truly something to behold, and I spent the entire afternoon after arriving home staring out the window, captivated by the intensity of this event.
It was truly a "phenomonon".
Sometimes the windblown rain looked almost like sheets of wind driven snow as it raced across the land, and visibility dropped to just a couple blocks.

By the way, was quite pleased with the "lightning tracker" data I got off the new Garmin GPS/Weather tracker computer independent system I bought, as radar showed many intense echoes, but the lightning data narrowed it nicely for me, loving lightning as I do.

 

[Shane Reichert]

The James River here in Springfield is insane. It looks like the Mississippi. Not to mention all the water in my basement

 

[MatthewCarman]

A friend who is a teacher in MO found out 1 of his student's was killed due to the flooding. This is a life threatning situation and I hope we have no more fatalities from this.

 

[Dustin Wilcox]

And before getting too excited about record exceeding - you need to know when the record was set... Someone got excited about river levels in one of the chatrooms yesterday, until they realized the gauge had only been there a few years

And Before you get too excited about the fact that a gauge may have only been there for a few years, you should look at the region as a whole and use a skill called observation, and realize that when several of the gauges are reporting major flooding its probably a worthy record, or you could simply take the time you spent to write your useless post and research the fact that this Gauge has been there since AT LEAST 1927; FWIW the 7th highest crest was 26.63 ft on 04/15/1927 currently near 10ft over that crest, not to mention, I don't care if the Gauge was installed yesterday, its still a record. But thanks for the input!!

 

[MatthewCarman]

Sounds like the death toll continues to rise. Does anyone know how many people have been killed from this flooding?

 

[Billy Griffin]

It's that danged-ol' global warming.

Seriously though, it's sad to see all the damage and any fatalities associated with this, but to be honest, I sort of expected it when watching the training on radar.
The Ozarks are very condusive to flash flooding to begin with. I cannot imagine how the rivers are over there right now.
My family and I used to take rafting trips down the Current River at Van Buren, MO. That river must be a raging white water rapids right now!

 

[Tony Laubach]

With record snowfall in the high country of Colorado this season (particularly southwest CO), we're expecting a dangerous spring snow-melt with significant river flooding possible in many areas. something to keep an eye out over the coming weeks and months here.

 

[Brian Emfinger]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Zby1b6j_FA

Video from today of the Arkansas River at Ozark, AR.

With all the rain we have had in Arkansas, E Oklahoma, E Texas, Missouri and on into the Ohio Valley we could have more serious river flooding (the Missouri, Arkansas, and Mississippi Rivers) over the next 2 months as we start getting that snow melt combined with any more heavy spring rain events. We definitely seem to be setup for it.

 

[beaudodson]

Absolutely horrible flooding here in Missouri and Illinois. Some communities have recorded their worst flooding ever. Vienna, Illinois is one of those towns. Every business has sustained flood damage. This is in an area that just doesn't flood.

Paducah is expecting a crest of 47' on the Ohio River. That would be considered major flooding per the NWS definition.

Cape Girardeau, Missouri was hit hard. They recorded around a foot of rain. Terrible situation. Poplar Bluff, Missouri has also been hit hard.

Incredible rainfall event.

Here are some photos I took from Massac County, Illinois
http://www.beaudodson.com/blog/blog.39.htm

 

[Heidi Farrar]

Some of you may have seen this video on the national news. The video shows the White River at Calico Rock, AR, which is about 20miles from where I live here in Izard Co.

Here is a link to see current info on river flooding here in AR. We've had levee breaches on the White River near Newport, as well as on the Black River near Pocahontas. Current projections are that the flooding south of Newport will be worse than the flood of 1982. I've seen arial videos of the Black River near Black Rock (Lawrence Co.) and it looks as bad as anything I can remember seeing from the Mississippi River Flooding in the early '90s, or Grand Forks in the late '90s.
This video, as well as others, can be found at the KAIT-8, Jonesboro website.

In my "neighborhood" we had to deal with major flash flooding issues, and the flooding of the Strawberry River, which was at its highest since 1982.

Here's the Strawberry's floodwaters a few hours after the peak:

And here's the Strawberry River just east of Franklin after the waters receded (taken from the same spot, two days later):

This is some of the flash flooding of "low-water bridges" we encountered right around our house; this is 1/2 mile north of us (of note, there is a tree "spike" on the left-hand side of this road that is a remnant of the Sept. 22 '06 tornado that went through here).

This is from our neighbors' property; this photo was taken from a "real" bridge. The water was about 8" from the bridge deck at the time of the photo.

Usually the places in those two photos are ankle-to-calf deep, and even dry up in the summer.

In my general area, we have not had the huge, major flooding issues that the areas close to major rivers have experienced (and continue to experience), but we do have a lot of damage left behind, to county roads and bridges, as well as pastures and fences.

EDIT: I just wanted to point out that I have re-sized that huge photo three times now on Photobucket (where I did the others, too) and still it shows up like that.