Nebraska Flooding Worst In 50 Years; Warming, Storm Energy, 5th-Wettest Met Winter Combined For Ruin

[hatrack]

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The 1- to 3-inch rainfall the storm delivered wasn’t extraordinary. But it fell on snow rich with water. In Omaha, several inches of snow remained on the ground, remnants of the 30 inches that had fallen since early February, itself a record-setting month for snow. Across eastern Nebraska, locked in that snow was 1 to 3 inches of water, according to the National Operational Hydrologic Remote Sensing Center. Beneath that snow was frozen ground — unable to absorb the runoff. In a sense, eastern Nebraska was one big concrete parking lot, and the equivalent of a 2- to 6-inch rainfall was about to wash off it.

As if that weren’t bad enough, there wasn’t the usual amount of room in eastern Nebraska’s rivers. They were already high as they continued to drain away last fall’s abundant rains. For Nebraska, September through February was the fifth-wettest fall-winter in 124 years of records, said Dan Pydynowski, senior meteorologist with AccuWeather Inc., The World-Herald’s weather consultant. And to top it off, the last half of winter had been so cold; Nebraska had its eighth-coldest February in 124 years, Iowa its 15th. Those rivers were covered by sheets of ice up to 20 inches thick.

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Some studies indicate that the factors that led to the type of storm that struck the Great Plains last week are increasing, said Michael Mann, director of the Penn State Earth System Science Center. “There is evidence now in modeling studies that climate change is increasing these factors, supporting the development of more intense bomb cyclones and Nor’easters, packing tropical storm-scale winds and dumping huge amounts of precipitation (often in the form of huge snowfalls).”

Additionally, one of the best understood consequences of global warming is the trend toward heavy rains and snows. That’s what happens on a planet that is more humid. Winters also are changing in Nebraska. Rain on frozen ground is becoming more likely, the state’s climatologists say. And there’s a trend toward a harsher end to winter, despite overall warming

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https://www.omaha.com/weather/record-snowfall-historic-bomb-cyclone-are-forces-behind-devastating-floods/article_b7b6547d-d4d2-5363-ad64-1142f87a513a.html

[NCjack]

1. No global change! I was in Nebraska last summer. Dry as bone.

This storm is welcomed. As I said: No global change!

[Wellstone ruled]

2. Eastern Nebraska

changed in mid August for wetness. Over twenty inches of rain or more by mid September for some areas as well as Western Iowa and Southwestern Minnesota.

We had to detour several times from Souix Falls to Yankton and again to Grand Island because of roads being under water caused by flash flooding due to heavy rains.