Two new eruptive fissures have opened early May 30, 2019, on the northern and southeastern sides of the New Southeast Crater, producing strombolian activity and small lava flows. The Aviation Color Code was raised to Red at 11:21 UTC. Volcanic ash is rising between 3.5 and 4 km (11 500 to 13 120 feet) above sea level.
Flooding in at least 8 states along portions of the Mississippi River – due to relentless, record-breaking spring rainfall – is the longest-lasting since the “Great Flood” of 1927, the National Weather Service said. The 1927 flood, which Weatherwise magazine called “perhaps the most underrated weather disaster of the century,” remains the benchmark flood event for the nation’s biggest river.
Anytime a modern flood can be mentioned in the same breath as the Great Flood is newsworthy: During that historic flood, hundreds of thousands of people fled their homes as millions of acres of land and towns went underwater.
At one point in 1927, along the Tennessee border, the Mississippi rose an astonishing 56.5 feet above flood stage, and in Arkansas, the river ballooned to 80 miles wide, according to the book Extreme Weather by Christopher Burt.
That flood “was the seminal event that led to the federal flood-control program and gave the Army Corps of Engineers the job of controlling the nation’s rivers via the erection of dams, dikes and other measures of flood abatement,” Burt wrote.
All of this year’s flooding is due to both early spring snowmelt and seemingly endless rain: Since the start of 2019, much of the lower Ohio and lower Mississippi River Valleys have picked up more than 2 feet of rain. A few spots have even received over 40 inches of rain, the Weather Channel said.
As the planet changes, heavy downpours are increasing in the Midwest. From the early 1990s to the mid-2010s, very heavy precipitation events in the Midwest increased by 37%, the assessment said.
In 2018, the assessment said that “an increase in localized extreme precipitation and storm events can lead to an increase in flooding. River flooding in large rivers like the Mississippi, Ohio, and Missouri Rivers and their tributaries can flood surface streets and low-lying areas, resulting in drinking water contamination, evacuations, damage to buildings, injury, and death.“
As of Tuesday, more than 370 river gauges were reporting levels above flood stage in the central U.S., the weather service said. And of those, 71 gauges reported major flooding, 105 moderate flooding and 206 minor flooding, the weather service reported.
The current flooding will also lead to increased food prices and food shortage in the US as most of the crops’ planting have been delayed strongly.
No comments:
Post a Comment