Toni Carlson of Rockford called with a wonderful question tonight. She said "I live in the Keith Creek floodplain. Everyone here is nervous when you say the words 'Flood Watch.' Do you think we're going to have another huge flood here tomorrow?"We talked at length about the difference between spring and summer flooding. Tomorrow's thunderstorms will come with a powerful jet stream upstairs (25,000 feet). The jet stream acts like a big pusher to move the storms along. So it won't be one storm dumping rain over one particular location like back in August of last year. Storms in spring often times bring heavy rain day after day and the flooding affects large areas, including river basins. Summer storms lack the jet stream above so storms can sometimes sit over one particular area and dump lots of rain.
So, to answer her question. Will it happen tomorrow? Of course we can't say with 100% certainty "No." However, the odds of another 100 year flood like what happened Labor Day 2006 and August 7, 2007 are extremely low.
A 1-3 inch rain (like what we're advertising for Thu/Fri) will cause creeks like Keith to come up for sure...even potentially out of their banks. However spring rains don't come down with such brute force over small areas...so long as we've got that jet stream overhead!
Thanks for your question Toni!
1 comment:
Why does the speed of the storm matter if it all runs off into the rivers/creeks anyway? Was the biggest factor in DeKalb's flood last year the time over which the rain fell, not necessarily the volume itself? (Deep thoughts, I know!)
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