Jake Orosi
EF4
TL;DR - My WFO says "there will be water this week".
Around my vicinity, all the nearby rivers carve deep valleys as they drain into Lake Erie. Most of us live a ways "above" the rivers therefore, and are in little danger of flooding, aside from the occasional ponding water in street intersections and gutters and such - which is not the sort of severe weather spotters need to report. A little ways south (less than ten miles inland), however, some of those river valleys become more like shallow ravines or gulleys, and are quite capable of causing some flooding - as anyone in the area last month can attest.
As incredibly dangerous as floods and flash flooding can be - most severe storm-related deaths and highest property damage, if I'm not mistaken - I contend there are safe spots from which one can monitor streams and rivers. Obviously I don't mean the river bank - I'm talking high spots, adjacent to (but not on) bridges and so forth; basically anywhere not directly on the floodplain and from which the river and its banks are still visible. Any place on the floodplain doesn't cut it, even on a road leading directly up out of the valley - flash floods will rise faster than you can notice and escape them, and you will be transformed from a spotter into a number in short order.
In cases where the expected severe weather is flood-related, do people often do such monitoring? Consider it to be "chasing floods" rather than tornadoes if you wish; but does anyone have any experience with such? Or do river level sensors and whatnot make it redundant? Those sensors don't monitor every single point of the river. Even so, the NWS likes ground truth no matter what their remote data says. Since river and stream data is provided via NWS's website, I imagine anyone's mobile storm-chasing internet setup is capable of monitoring water level information just as easily as Doppler radar.
Even if or if not redundant, is "flood spotting" practically useful? I can get out a rule and measure a hailstone; I can use an anemometer to measure wind speed. I can't use a lead to measure river depth. Or I can, but in a situation where flooding is taking place or expected to take place, there is simply and absolutely no safe way to do so. What, then, gets reported? "The river looks like it's rising quick" doesn't really cut it. Would it be the moment the river tops the bank?
Don't see much about flooding in general on this forum - but it's still severe weather anyway, so just throwing this out there to see what I catch.
Around my vicinity, all the nearby rivers carve deep valleys as they drain into Lake Erie. Most of us live a ways "above" the rivers therefore, and are in little danger of flooding, aside from the occasional ponding water in street intersections and gutters and such - which is not the sort of severe weather spotters need to report. A little ways south (less than ten miles inland), however, some of those river valleys become more like shallow ravines or gulleys, and are quite capable of causing some flooding - as anyone in the area last month can attest.
As incredibly dangerous as floods and flash flooding can be - most severe storm-related deaths and highest property damage, if I'm not mistaken - I contend there are safe spots from which one can monitor streams and rivers. Obviously I don't mean the river bank - I'm talking high spots, adjacent to (but not on) bridges and so forth; basically anywhere not directly on the floodplain and from which the river and its banks are still visible. Any place on the floodplain doesn't cut it, even on a road leading directly up out of the valley - flash floods will rise faster than you can notice and escape them, and you will be transformed from a spotter into a number in short order.
In cases where the expected severe weather is flood-related, do people often do such monitoring? Consider it to be "chasing floods" rather than tornadoes if you wish; but does anyone have any experience with such? Or do river level sensors and whatnot make it redundant? Those sensors don't monitor every single point of the river. Even so, the NWS likes ground truth no matter what their remote data says. Since river and stream data is provided via NWS's website, I imagine anyone's mobile storm-chasing internet setup is capable of monitoring water level information just as easily as Doppler radar.
Even if or if not redundant, is "flood spotting" practically useful? I can get out a rule and measure a hailstone; I can use an anemometer to measure wind speed. I can't use a lead to measure river depth. Or I can, but in a situation where flooding is taking place or expected to take place, there is simply and absolutely no safe way to do so. What, then, gets reported? "The river looks like it's rising quick" doesn't really cut it. Would it be the moment the river tops the bank?
Don't see much about flooding in general on this forum - but it's still severe weather anyway, so just throwing this out there to see what I catch.
