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A lot of people are unaware that there were major changes to dyke and levee systems after the bad floods in the Midwest about 50 and 20 years ago (roughly).
This can quite literally push the problem downstream to other areas.
Flooding in areas like the Mayors may be worse because of areas upstream public works projects that are shifting the flooding downstream.
This was a widely discussed phenomenon during some of the last major Midwest floods where areas around St. Louis hit some extremely high (historic perhaps) flood stages.
I think it's important to know, like if someone didn't follow MLB and was astounded by the surge in homeruns one year not knowing the league ok'd aluminum bats for use.
And if there was a drought they'd be saying THAT was the fault of global warming. Like the drought a couple years back in California. Record melting snow, clashing warm and unusually strong cold fronts on top of that, you have a lot of rain.
Or you have an ordinary strength hurricane that gets stalled by high pressures that won't move. Like in the Carolinas and in Texas. Not monster hurricanes like the MSM pretended they were, just terrible timing and the right conditions for a deluge. THEY were supposed to be proof of global warming after several years on no serious hurricane activity.
If you guys would read a science book instead of using it as a weapon to attack people with, you might have a better grasp of what you're repeating from the " experts."
It's understandable why some people are slow to accept climate change. It's an abstract concept.
But when it slaps you hard in the face, you better pay attention.
I've said several times before that some people will still be denying that things are drastically changing on our little planet even when the waves of water in Nebraska are washing over their knees. Looks like it is happening faster than any of us predicted.
"Fiddling while Rome burns" is a perfect description of how some people are just idly sitting by and saying it is fake news.
It's understandable why some people are slow to accept climate change. It's an abstract concept.
But when it slaps you hard in the face, you better pay attention.
That's weather, not climate.
Where do you think all that water came from? Most of it from melted snow!
Last edited by hawkeye2009; 05-31-2019 at 07:03 AM..
A lot of records in the US only go back 200 years and that's being generous.
"Historic" could be defined as something around a 1 in 400 year event.
You then have rainfall, flooding, snow, drought, heat, cold, tornados, fires, storm surge, hurricanes.
Oh, then we can talk about record high, or low, or a big storm or low frequency or high frequency and so on and so forth.
Finally we could be talking about California, Florida, Texas, Midwest, northeast, Rockies, Colorado, Miami, and so on and so forth.
Then we could get into multi-year measures.
So there are literally TENS OF THOUSANDS of possible "historic" events each year so it's not exactly shocking that you have a few dozen or more make the news.
Record heat in Texas one summer.
30 days without rain in Iowa
Record low snowfall in Yellowstone
no hurricanes hitting the US for 10 years
4 hurricanes hitting the US in 1 year
etc. etc. etc. historic!
And of course, the 24-7 news and weather need something *exciting* to talk about.
Just something to contemplate.
It's a lot like the birthday game. Have the announcer at a Cubs game call out "whose birthday is June 1st and you're going to have dozens of people stand up. Just saying.
Even looking back 200 years we are hitting new highs when we should be recording decreases in temperature.
There were predictions that certain areas had 100 year flood plains, now many are being flooded in 20 year intervals. Look at Houston, they had 3 floods in 3 years in what was supposed to be 500 year flood plain.
Its not just the US, people focus too much on our small part of the world,
We are way behind the curve, we should have been addressing this decades ago but instead some are still arguing that its even warming. People don't want to hear that they need to change their habits.
So if man is burning trees and fossil fuels that have been stored for millions of years cant change the climate. Releasing 40 billion tons of CO2 each year doesn't change the climate. We had 9 of the 10 hottest years on record since 2000, 6 of 10 since 2010. That isn't weather, that is climate change.
The sun is responsible for the warmth on the earth.
It's understandable why some people are slow to accept climate change. It's an abstract concept.
But when it slaps you hard in the face, you better pay attention.
Climate change may be real but floods are nothing new and there is no reason to say this flood proves it.
Even looking back 200 years we are hitting new highs when we should be recording decreases in temperature.
There were predictions that certain areas had 100 year flood plains, now many are being flooded in 20 year intervals. Look at Houston, they had 3 floods in 3 years in what was supposed to be 500 year flood plain.
Its not just the US, people focus too much on our small part of the world,
Again, I'm not denying global warming.
I'm pointing out the incredibly unscientific garbage being thrown about "historic this and that" and other assorted crappola that just opens up the same counter arguments to the deniers.
Flood hazard areas identified on the Flood Insurance Rate Map are identified as a Special Flood Hazard Area (SFHA). SFHA are defined as the area that will be inundated by the flood event having a 1-percent chance of being equaled or exceeded in any given year. The 1-percent annual chance flood is also referred to as the base flood or 100-year flood. SFHAs are labeled as Zone A, Zone AO, Zone AH, Zones A1-A30, Zone AE, Zone A99, Zone AR, Zone AR/AE, Zone AR/AO, Zone AR/A1-A30, Zone AR/A, Zone V, Zone VE, and Zones V1-V30. Moderate flood hazard areas, labeled Zone B or Zone X (shaded) are also shown on the FIRM, and are the areas between the limits of the base flood and the 0.2-percent-annual-chance (or 500-year) flood. The areas of minimal flood hazard, which are the areas outside the SFHA and higher than the elevation of the 0.2-percent-annual-chance flood, are labeled Zone C or Zone X (unshaded).
What you should notice above is that flood zones come in just 2 government flavors 1 in 100 and 1 in 500. One size fits all baby! some of those actually ARE 1 in 20 flood zones, some are 1 in 200 what you're seeing is a blending and that's if they didn't mislabel some areas like Houston. You believe that a coastal city like Houston in major hurricane paths that sits above sea level by the height of a refrigerator only has a 1 in 500 risk?
I'd recommend just sticking to solid scientific studies, linking to them and relying on experts. It's way beyond my expertise as well, so I'm just sharing the advice I take myself.
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