Midwest Flood Compared to Great Flood of 1993
UPDATE: Fox News just pointed out that this is the worst flooding ever for Cedar Rapids, Iowa. According to the NWS River website, this is true for the Cedar River, in fact there is less than a 1% chance of the river exceeding its record stage (gauge height) of 20 feet, which happened in 1929. Yet today, it crested at 31.12 feet, which is truely incredible. Our video below says Iowa officials are calling it "a 500-year flood."
Des Moines is also taking voluntary evacuations, as the Des Moines river at SE 6th Street has just topped its record stage (from 1993) as well (live | archived graph). So, for some locations, the flooding is indeed worse than 1993, but I believe the overall land area and number of people affected is nowhere close yet.
Below is a video from our news desk showing the flooding across the area.
ORIGINAL POST:
Some blog readers have asked, how does this week's Midwest flooding compare to the Great Flood of 1993? The media is also mentioning this comparison. Let's take a look.
First, in terms of amounts... This year, 30-day rainfall has exceeded 18 inches in parts of the state, with a wider area of over one foot (pink on the map below, courtesy AccuWeather SelectWarn, our TV weather display system).
In 1993, rainfall exceeded 20 inches over a wide part of Iowa. WikiPedia says that "some locations on the Mississippi River flooded for almost 200 days" in 1993. While I don't have numbers for 2008, that obviously hasn't happened yet since our heavy rain has only been over the last month and flooding often continues for months after the rain. So clearly the magnitude of the rainfall itself has not equaled 1993 yet (though it is approaching it).
Will we see flooding as bad as 15 years ago? AccuWeather.com Professional's Joe Bastardi [BIO] (PRO USERS READ NOW | 30-DAY FREE TRIAL) believes not. He said in his blog this morning:
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