Harvey is a 1,000-year flood event unprecedented in scale

[brooklynite]

Source: Washington Post

As Harvey’s rains unfolded, the intensity and scope of the disaster were so enormous that weather forecasters, first responders, the victims, everyone really, couldn’t believe their eyes. Now the data are bearing out what everyone suspected: This flood event is on an entirely different scale than what we’ve seen before in the United States.

A new analysis from the University of Wisconsin’s Space Science and Engineering Center has determined that Harvey is a one-in-1,000-year flood event that has overwhelmed an enormous section of Southeast Texas equivalent in size to New Jersey.

There is nothing in the historical record that rivals this, according to Shane Hubbard, the Wisconsin researcher who made and mapped this calculation. “In looking at many of these events (in the U.S.), I’ve never seen anything of this magnitude or size,” he said. “This is something that hasn’t happened in our modern era of observations.”

Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/capital-weather-gang/wp/2017/08/31/harvey-is-a-1000-year-flood-event-unprecedented-in-scale/?hpid=hp_hp-top-table-main_1000-yr-2pm%3Ahomepage%2Fstory&utm_term=.e3d87fbdd4ab

[ffr]

1. And it's magnified by carbon put into the atmosphere 30 years ago.

What does that foretell about 30 years from now, in 2047 when Earth's human population is forecast to be 9.5 billion?

We had our chance to act and we chose convenience and the easy life. You don't get something for nothing.

[alterfurz]

3. "We could have saved the Earth...

...but we were too damn cheap." -- Kurt Vonnegut

[JustABozoOnThisBus]

10. Also magnified by the asphalt, cement on the ground and by roofs of various materials.

None of which are very good at absorbing rainwater.

[bucolic_frolic]

2. It could be the New Normal

We had early fall and severe ice storms in successive years a few years back. Not before, not since.

Climatologists told us storms could be more frequent and more severe due to the global warming that
doesn't exist.

Must be #FakeWeather then.

[yallerdawg]

4. In other words...

what are the chances of it happening again?

Swap out the sheetrock, get new carpet, get back to work!

Life goes on - and the rich live on higher ground!

[OnlinePoker]

9. Unless you're the Obama's.

I guess they're immune to sea level rise.

http://www.realtor.com/news/celebrity-real-estate/obamas-may-buy-in-marthas-vineyard/

[packman]

5. Time has a way of kicking you in the teeth

Here in the Florida Panhandle we've had two 500 yr. floods in a short span. Maybe 1,000 yrs. if man didn't stick his dirty little fingers into the climate.

[FakeNoose]

20. Sure - they have to revise their standards now, it seems

Too many of these storms are coming every year, so this is no longer a 500-year (or 1,000-year) event.

It's more like 3 out of 5 years.

[harun]

6. Strength of Harvey is from Global Warming. Not that the media will say it.

[BigmanPigman]

8. The Gulf of Mexico is one of the warmest bodies of water on Earth.

Add climate change to that and "the future" is happening NOW and has been evident, to all but the dead, for 10 years.

Reason # 1,000 why I am glad I chose not to have kids when I was younger.

[brush]

7. Might be too soon for that. There are two more forming in the Atlantic.

Last edited Thu Aug 31, 2017, 04:44 PM - Edit history (1)

And wasn't Katrina supposed to have been a 500-year event just 12 years ago?

UH-OH!

[Hortensis]

11. That term's completely obsolete, based on pre- Industrial Revolution and thus

pre- global warming data. There could be another "1000-year" event next year or later in the summer. 100-year events are now fairly frequent in many areas.

[RKP5637]

17. Exactly! That's given the historical record with pre-2017 conditions as historical record.

[ananda]

12. And extreme climate disasters will be common events ..

.. from now on.

Get used to it.

India just had huge floods too.

[Blue_Adept]

13. "historical record" pffft

If it ain't in the bible it didn't happen.

[Skittles]

14. yet we will have another one.....soon

how do these 100-year, 500-year, 1000-year floods happen more than once in our lifetime?

[RKP5637]

15. Totally above Trump's head! n/t

[deminks]

16. Calling something like this a 1000 year or 500 year whatever is to deny global warming.

Those phrases normalize it, somehow. This is not normal. IMHO. The hurricane, normal. The torrential rain, normal. 50+ inches, not normal. IMHO.

[BumRushDaShow]

18. Plus when you have some of the worst storms having happened in the past 15 years

then those terms are meaningless. Every large event being called "a 100 year" storm or a "500 year" storm is more and more an "every couple years" storm.

[Snackshack]

19. Welcome to the new normal...

[NNadir]

21. The size of New Jersey? Would that be the New Jersey that Ted Cruz called "pork?"

Ted and his allies don't "believe" in climate change. Anyone who voted for this ass, or for the orange "me...me...Me...ME...ME" orange asshole actually deserves this; and there will be more of it.

But it rains on the guilty and the innocent alike, and we must help Texas, because it's been "New Jerseyed."

The essence of the Golden Rule is not to treat people like they treat you, but rather to treat them as you wish you'd been treated.

In New Jersey, we can forgive, but we will not and should not forget.

[dbackjon]

22. Get used to this being once in a decade