Saturday, September 14, 2013

‘Biblical’ Amounts Of Rainfall Slam Colorado, Causing Death, Destruction, And Massive Flooding

http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2013/09/13/2617361/biblical-rainfall-colorado/

By Ryan Koronowski on September 13, 2013

Massive, historic, “biblical” rainfall cascaded through much of Colorado Thursday, leaving three people dead and one missing as of Thursday night as a result of the flooding.

Up to 8 inches of rain fell across a hundred-mile expanse of Colorado’s Front Range, causing thousands to be evacuated as local streams turned into rampaging torrents. The heavy rains returned to the foothills region Thursday night, with more precipitation forecast for Friday.

The National Weather Service issued constantly-updated versions of a local area forecast, and one at 9:41 a.m. MDT reported a dire warning:

MAJOR FLOODING/FLASH FLOODING EVENT UNDERWAY AT THIS TIME WITH BIBLICAL RAINFALL AMOUNTS REPORTED IN MANY AREAS IN/NEAR THE FOOTHILLS

There’s no scientific definition of “biblical” but the flooding has been unlike anything local residents have ever seen before.

Boulder County Sheriff Joe Pelle, after facing 20-foot walls of water racing down canyons already stripped bare by wildfires and drought, said, “This is not an ordinary day. It is not an ordinary disaster.”

A dozen dams overflowed and six actually blew out, while officials were keeping their eyes on several high-hazard dams whose failure would seriously endanger lives.

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Though there have been severe storms in the past, the amount of rain that has fallen in so short a time is unprecedented.

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And it’s not just Colorado. Historic, “unbelievable” rainfall in New Mexico on Thursday caused flooding in areas that typically have little to no flow at this time of year.

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One single event cannot definitively be said to be caused by climate change. But a study last year found that as the Earth gets warmer, precipitation patterns shift and we will see more intense downpours as storms become stronger because they have more energy.

[Also, warm air holds more moisture. When a mass of warm mass air meets a mass of colder air, we have more precipitation.]

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