Since last October, the United States has been hit by “historic flood” after “historic flood”, and this latest flooding down in Louisiana that is making headlines all over the world has been caused by a “500 year storm“. Even before some areas of the state received more than 30 inches of rain, this was already the worst 12 months for floods in U.S. history, but without a doubt this has put an exclamation mark on this exceedingly unusual stretch of flooding. There are some rivers down in Louisiana that have crested three to four feet higher than their previous all-time records, and Governor Edwards is using the words “unprecedented” and “historic” to describe these floods. So far, 20,000 people have been rescued by authorities, and Governor Edwards even had to evacuate the Governor’s Mansion due to chest-high water in the basement.
So why is this happening?
Why are we being hammered by historic flood after historic flood?
One of the most amazing images from the flooding down in Louisiana was of caskets that had been washed up from a graveyard that were literally floating down the street. Meteorologists are telling us that the storm that brought all of this rain was essentially equivalent to a tropical storm…
As meteorologist Tim Destri with the NWS New Orleans/Baton Rouge office explains it, a low pressure system forms near the surface bringing deep tropical moisture from the warmer water in the Caribbean — almost like a hurricane but without the wind and the name.
“Everything came together just right like it would with a tropical weather system,” Destri said.
Destri went on to compare the damage caused by this storm to Hurricane Katrina…
“This probably ranked up there with some of the top rainfall-producing systems in history,” Destri said. “Damage is really significant, I mean extreme, because it’s been so devastating with some houses just completely inundated, just scenes like Katrina almost.”
In fact, in some areas the damage was even worse than we saw during Hurricane Katrina. According to the Washington Post, one resident said that this flooding was “the worst situation I’ve ever been through“.
And unfortunately, it isn’t over yet. More rain was forecast for today, and that is going to make the flooding even worse.
They will be talking about this current flood down in Louisiana for many years to come, and we will add this flood to the other historic floods on my ongoing listfrom previous articles…
October: Hurricane Joaquin never makes landfall, but it tracks up the east coast of the United States causing nightmarish rainfall and flooding all over the eastern seaboard. Things were particularly bad in South Carolina, where the governor declared that it was the worst rainfall that many areas of her state had seen in 1,000 years.