Historic flooding has followed in the wake of the “bomb cyclone” that rammed into the central U.S. this week, with USA Today reporting that Nebraska experienced what may be the worst floods in half a century. Flooding has continued in swathes of Iowa, Missouri, and Nebraska, according to CNN.
A bomb cyclone occurs when—as happened last week when a storm that began to form in the Southwest swept across the Central U.S.—pressure drops dramatically in a short period of time, a phenomenon known as “explosive bombogenesis.” It’s rare for one to happen in the inland U.S., and this week’s storm resulted in severe weather across a massive stretch of the country.
Nebraska Governor Pete Ricketts characterized the situation on Friday as “historic flooding and extreme weather in nearly every region of the state.” Flood teams throughout Nebraska have been rescuing stranded civilians since Thursday, CNN wrote.
CNN added that one man in the state, Columbus farmer James Wilke, received a distress call, headed out on his tractor, and died when a bridge collapsed:
According to CNN affiliate KMTV, a close family friend posted on social media about his last moments.
“It is no surprise to anyone that knew James that when he got the phone call to assist emergency responders … his answers would be yes,” Jodi L. Hefti wrote on Facebook.
“With the guidance of emergency responders, James drove his tractor over the Shell Creek bridge on the Monestary Road and the bridge gave out. James and the tractor went down into the flood water below.”
Incredible. 30 percent of Offutt Air base, home of US Strategic Command, is underwater after massive flooding. Comes months after Tyndall Air base in Fla. was wiped out in a hurricane. The New Normal. https://t.co/lUd3967TfG
— Paul McLeary (@paulmcleary) March 18, 2019
Navy bases are being inundated along the shores and AF bases are being flooded way inland. Will we be ready to go to war with North Korea (when Trump needs a war to get reelected) if this keeps up?
Son reports that the cyclone bomb dumped much snow in Crested Butte, CO, so much that it created a new weather danger—-the “urban avalanche”. Snow cascading off house roofs buried and killed one man and injured others. A plus is that the snow pack is up this year and that’s good news for Lakes Mead and Powell.
In some places dams and [partially-covered] reservoirs should be designed for capturing precipitation bombs that might come every dozen years or so with lots of intervening dry years, rather than with an expectation of some years just being rainier than others. I’m thinking of a place like Australia’s Northern Territory near Darwin, which is generally dry but likely to get occasionally hammered by major typhoons. Such dams would be more for water storage (and flood control) than reliable hydroelectricity.
Most excellent idea, most unfortunately will not work in that part of Oz, have looked extensively. On precipitation bombs, one in northern Queensland drowned 500,000 cattle. This area carries stock at x acres/hectares per head, huge and FLAT, and enough rain fell in short time to kill that many.
No place to dam the flood and all across north Oz has similar problems. Other countries with better topography should consider the idea, as rainfall is tending to be more erratic with severe variations. Expect the need for consumable water to become problematic in many places.
Another beautiful idea shot down by an ugly fact. 😀
Here’s a before/after image slider from NASA’s Earth Observatory:
https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/144691/historic-floods-inundate-nebraska
Maybe Trump Country will reconsider whether climate change is a Chinese hoax? But, probably not.
He’s working overtime now => https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2019/3/15/1842485/-Trump-works-hard-not-to-offend-his-white-nationalist-base-after-New-Zealand-slaughter
https://climatecrock.files.wordpress.com/2016/03/trumptweek.jpg