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General Weather/Earth Sciences Topics => Severe Weather => Topic started by: SpartanWX on July 31, 2016, 11:44:11 PM

Title: 1,000 year storm (6" / 2hr) lays waste to Ellicott City, MD
Post by: SpartanWX on July 31, 2016, 11:44:11 PM
Amazing there were only two dead:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/capital-weather-gang/wp/2016/07/31/video-and-photo-horrific-flooding-in-ruined-ellicott-city-md/

(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Cotc0jfWAAA2JCU.jpg)

This was the 3 hour rainfall:
(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Cotc1pGWcAA-xEf.jpg)

(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CoqWglZWgAAH9mR.jpg)

Title: Re: 1,000 year storm (6" / 2hr) lays waste to Ellicott City, MD
Post by: floodcaster on August 01, 2016, 08:07:45 AM
Wow! I remember the record 1 minute rainfall was set in MD back in 1956 as noted here (http://www.nws.noaa.gov/oh/hdsc/record_precip/record_precip_world.html).

What's amazing is looking at the volume of water (measured in cubic feet/sec) for that gaging site location you included. Days before it was around 60 cfs and then it peaked at nearly 30,000 cfs! 
Title: Re: 1,000 year storm (6" / 2hr) lays waste to Ellicott City, MD
Post by: Jáchym on August 01, 2016, 10:02:22 AM
On one of our stations here in the Czech Republic we recently had 4.7 in in one hour, and out of that 3.2 in were in a matter of 20 minutes....

Here in Brno we just had intense thunderstorm too yesterday, 1.2in/30 minutes
Title: Re: 1,000 year storm (6" / 2hr) lays waste to Ellicott City, MD
Post by: Farmtalk on August 01, 2016, 10:40:41 PM
This has been common in the US this summer, and that's what happened in my location. We received around 7" of rain in 4 hours. My basin was labeled as a 1 in 300 year flood; others nearby were 1 in 1500 years.  :-(

This happened again in 2 location in the US: Missouri and South Carolina.

A disturbance stalled over Missouri this morning, dropping between 7 and 11 inches of rain in 5 hours. (First picture)

On a more localized level like in Maryland, the eastern side of Columbia SC picked up 4.64" in 90 minutes.

Upper level winds have been slow this summer abnormally. In addition, it has been slightly more moist (higher dew points) than usual. More scattered storms, and more moisture to work with this summer than normal.
Title: Re: 1,000 year storm (6" / 2hr) lays waste to Ellicott City, MD
Post by: Farmtalk on August 04, 2016, 11:12:59 AM
There was another instance of very isolated heavy rainfall totals, this time in North Carolina, where area near Mt. Airy, North Carolina (Near the Virginia border) saw between 8 and 10 inches of rain in a few hours. Just a few miles away, less than 1/2" of rain fell. Image from Chief Meteorologist Brad Panovich in North Carolina.
Title: Re: 1,000 year storm (6" / 2hr) lays waste to Ellicott City, MD
Post by: ClaireAnderson on October 24, 2016, 01:12:15 AM
People usually become happy when the rain starts but too heavy rain can lead to floods and landslidings. Even the recent hurricane Mathew, caused flood in some of the cities. Too heavy rain could cause destruction to the property and it could also be life threatening.