Weird Weather and anecdotal stories about climate change

[kassy]

I spoke a few people who fear that pattern.

In the Netherlands we still have a huge ground water deficit left over from last year. A repeat of last years weather would be bad for agriculture and nature in the eastern (slightly higher) part of the country.

Then there are other knock on effects. We have many houses that have wooden poles as part of the foundation. When ground water no longer covers them they start to rot.

Long dutch article about that:
https://www.nrc.nl/nieuws/2019/02/23/palenpest-en-droogte-bedreigen-miljoen-woningen-a3655176

[El Cid]

Netherlands?

Are you kidding? There will be no Netherlands in a 100 yrs time. You'd better sell those pricey Amsterdam homes (as long as there are willing buyers thanks to the ECB's zero interest rate policy) and relocate uphill!

or

[BornFromTheVoid]

Those February records didn't last too long. 21.2C today, earliest date for 70F.

https://twitter.com/metoffice/status/1100432569617797122

That's the old February recorded beaten by 1.5C now. Crazy that it feels like summer in February.

[Tor Bejnar]

The jetstream must be moving slow because these weather patterns do not want to budge.

There are two types of "moving".  Stationary, as is stuck in one place, vs. limping along at 50 mph (or 20 m/s - I wish I could 'limp' that fast).  It has been a little stuck, like a standing wave, but it hasn't been limping - recently an airplane clocked 800 mph (ground speed) with the jet stream assist.

[vox_mundi]

'Ice tsunami' on Lake Erie after strong winds

[vox_mundi]

Extreme Weather Causes Concerns Over Madison's Water Infrastructure
https://www.wpr.org/extreme-weather-causes-concerns-over-madisons-water-infrastructure



The extreme temperature swings in the past few weeks put pressure on Wisconsin's infrastructure. In Madison, it raised concerns about how water mains will fare as climate change progresses.

The Madison Water Utility responded to 32 water main breaks in one week, from Jan. 28 to Feb. 4, during the polar vortex and rapid thaw. In a single day, Feb. 1, the city experienced seven breaks. ... "That’s a big number for us," said Amy Barrilleaux, public information officer for the Madison Water Utility.

The last time that Madison saw such an influx of main breaks, Barrilleaux said, was during the 2014 polar vortex.

Could incidents of mass breaks become more common as climate change worsens? ... "I think so," said Barrilleaux. "I think this winter is a really interesting example. In early January, there was no frost line in the ground. Last week, it was 4 feet into the ground. That's a huge shift."

Retreating and advancing frost lines cause shifts in pressure, creating cracks.

Some of Madison’s water mains are more than 100 years old, installed in the 1880s when the utility formed, but those aren’t the most troublesome pipes.

The mains most susceptible to breaks were installed in the post-World War II era. They’re made from a less expensive and less durable material: spun-cast iron. A dependable main should last about 100 years, but Barrilleaux said that in Madison and across the country, the baby boom water mains are breaking down after 70 years.

"It's only so much that pipes under the ground can take," Barrilleaux said. "And this winter in particular has been really eye-opening in terms of the swings that we're seeing and that maybe we'll continue to see for some time."

[vox_mundi]

No Party Like a Donner Party: Amtrak Train with 183 People On Board Stranded in Oregon Snow for 36 Hours   
https://www.popularmechanics.com/adventure/outdoors/a26534051/amtrak-oregon-snow-stranded/

An Amtrak train bound for Los Angeles from Seattle has been marooned on a snowy Oregon railway for more than 36 hours. The train collided with a fallen tree on Sunday evening and got stuck.

... "We can’t get off the train because there’s four feet of snow in every direction, there’s nowhere to go.”

... Free food provided by Amtrak has been served by crew members eager to help maintain morale. But the cheerful vibes might soon vanish:

Passengers were informed on Tuesday morning that breakfast would be their last meal.

[oren]

Netherlands?

Are you kidding? There will be no Netherlands in a 100 yrs time. You'd better sell those pricey Amsterdam homes (as long as there are willing buyers thanks to the ECB's zero interest rate policy) and relocate uphill!

or

It really depends if SLR comes from Greenland or Antarctica. IIRC, Greenland melting does not raise relative sea level near the Netherlands, as it is balanced by a reduced local gravitational pull.
OTOH, Antarctica melting would affect the Netherlands disproportionately due to the same effect.

[Martin Gisser]

Netherlands?

Are you kidding? There will be no Netherlands in a 100 yrs time. You'd better sell those pricey Amsterdam homes (as long as there are willing buyers thanks to the ECB's zero interest rate policy) and relocate uphill!

or

Surely the Netherlands will go under long after Miami Beach. They are prepared and have ground to stand on since centuries.



((Bears repeating (incl. MP3 compression algorithm fragments). Forget about the end credits, who fail to mention DJ Trump's children concentration camps.))

[kassy]

Hopefully the Antarctic glaciers will hold for a while...

Also record temps here , 3 days in a row now but we only got up to 18C today (old record 17,8) and yesterday it was 18,3 (was 17,3).

https://www.nu.nl/binnenland/5764203/voor-de-derde-dag-op-rij-een-datumrecord-door-warm-weer.html

[Jim Hunt]

The jet stream has moved on and it's getting colder again here in now not so sunny South West England. Here's the final February 2019 UK surface temperature summary from the Met Office:

https://twitter.com/metoffice/status/1100825391416119297

I went surfing in the sunshine yesterday. The water off North Cornwall takes a lot longer to warm up than the air!

[Neven]

February temperature broken in Austria yesterday: 24.2 °C in Deutschlandsberg and Güssing (30 km from where I live). Old record was 23.6 °C, set on 29 February 1960 in Bruck an der Mur.

[Phil42]

February temperature records broken in Switzerland as well at several locations across the country (mostly in the mountains). Numbers in brackets are old records:

Cimetta, 15.9 °C (15.5, 2012)
La Dôle, 14.1 °C (11.8, 1998)
Zermatt, 13.7 °C (13.0, 1960)
Chasseral, 13.5 °C (12.3, 2007)
Le Moléson, 12.3°C

Furthermore there have been possible new records in the cities of Geneva and Lucerne with 20.1 °C each.

[Rodius]

We cant let the Northern Hemisphere get all the headlines.

Australia just broke the summer temp record by being +2C above medium.
No El Nino, which was what held the last record.
We have an El Nino coming soon so I expect the record breaking to continue.

http://www.weatherzone.com.au/news/australias-hottest-summer-on-record/529339?

[Rod]

Patrick Duplessis, physics PhD candidate from Halifax, Nova Scotia says on Twitter today:

"This month's map has the most extreme anomalies I've ever shown in my monthly summaries. Coldest Feb since 1936 in the west, which means coldest on record at #Vancouver Airport (data since 1937)! Meanwhile, 9°C warmer than normal for #Inuvik! Eastern numbers pale in comparison..."

[gerontocrat]

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2019/mar/02/uk-temperature-jump-february-incredible-climate-weather-carbon
UK weather: February temperature jump was incredible, says climate expert
Meteorologists look at extent to which unseasonably warm weather is due to carbon emissions

This is the comment from the article I find most interesting...

Geert Jan van Oldenborgh, a climate researcher at Royal Netherlands Meteorolgical Institute who has conducted a preliminary study of the trend data from Reading and central England, said the probability of this week’s temperatures was close to zero.

“This is an incredible jump in record temperatures. If you asked me a few months ago, I would have said it is ridiculous,” he said. “It’s at least a one-in 200-year event, but it could be more because my statistical tools break down because this was so far outside what we are used to in February.”

Is this the shape of things to come now?

[magnamentis]

Is this the shape of things to come now?

so many ghost-riders "geisterfahrer" all scotsmen driving on the wrong side LOL [just kidding]

which is why you have so many narrow streets where it doesn't matter

 [just kidding]

[Niall Dollard]

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2019/mar/02/uk-temperature-jump-february-incredible-climate-weather-carbon
UK weather: February temperature jump was incredible, says climate expert
Meteorologists look at extent to which unseasonably warm weather is due to carbon emissions

That's an odd pic in the Guardian. Beast from the East was late Feb/early March 2018. There was very little lying snow in Scotland on 31st Jan 2018. None at low lying levels (M876)

[Jim Hunt]

That's an odd pic in the Guardian.

Cherry picking by the Grauniad? Surely not!

North Cornwall on March 18th 2018 versus February 27th 2019:

[El Cid]

That's an odd pic in the Guardian.

Cherry picking by the Grauniad? Surely not!

North Cornwall on March 18th 2018 versus February 27th 2019:

Now, this is cherry picking at its best! Take the warmest, nicest end-winter day of the last 100 yrs and compare  it to an unusually cold, snowy midmarch.

well done

[Klondike Kat]

That's an odd pic in the Guardian.

Cherry picking by the Grauniad? Surely not!

North Cornwall on March 18th 2018 versus February 27th 2019:

Now, this is cherry picking at its best! Take the warmest, nicest end-winter day of the last 100 yrs and compare  it to an unusually cold, snowy midmarch.

well done

Yes,  that would be like comparing the unusual warmth in Bismarck, ND in March of 2012 to the bitter cold today.

[Rod]

I remember Shared Humanity complaining last summer when Chicago was breaking heat records.  I was there during some of the worst of it.  I guess this is payback for everyone who complained about the heat 🤔

[John Batteen]

In Aberdeen SD we broke both record low max and record low for the date on March 3rd.  High of -1, low of -20.  February was our coldest February on record.  I think more records will fall before the pattern lets up.  It's just never ending.  Has to be breaking records for continuous cold.  Longest streak of days below average perhaps.

[Sigmetnow]

Wettest winter on record for the U.S..  Every state at or above normal precipitation.

[Sigmetnow]

Avalanches Menace Colorado as Climate Change Raises the Risk

Against the backdrop of an 800-foot high mountain wall scarred by avalanches, Arapahoe Basin mountain operations director Tim Finnigan says he can't remember a cycle of winter storms and avalanches in Colorado as extreme as this.

In the past week, masses of snow sliding off mountains shut down ski resorts, damaged gas lines and buried cars on busy highways. Along Interstate 70—a key east-west corridor through the Rocky Mountains—massive clouds of pulverized snow moving at speeds of up to 200 mph pushed pickup trucks into the median and left the road covered with piles of compressed frozen snow as hard as concrete.

Normally, avalanche experts with the Colorado Department of Transportation reduce the risk by releasing controlled avalanches while roads are closed, but the extreme conditions in early March took even seasoned Colorado veterans by surprise, with large avalanches unexpectedly hitting roads while they were open. On March 8, the Colorado Avalanche Information Center said 346 avalanches had been reported in the previous seven days. Two people died in the avalanches.

"CDOT will have to rethink their avalanche work along I-70 after this," Finnigan said as he slurped soup at the Arapahoe Basin lodge after a day of blasting mountain slopes. He has worked in the snow safety field for about 30 years, sometimes triggering controlled avalanches with hand-thrown charges or by cutting into brittle slopes with his skis.

Snow scientists say extreme avalanches are among the accelerating impacts of climate change in mountain regions. Global warming can affect avalanches in several ways:

• More moisture in a warmer atmosphere can fuel more extreme snowstorms, which means bigger avalanches.
• Warmer temperatures can make snow layers collapse and slide.
• More rain-on-snow events also destabilize snow layers.
...
He recently surveyed 240 avalanche experts and snow scientists to learn how global warming is changing the risks associated with dangerous snow slides.

"The findings were really consistent, with an increase in observed avalanches, and even more predicted, especially wet snow and wet slab avalanches, because that's related to warming temperatures," he said. ...

https://insideclimatenews.org/news/08032019/avalanche-climate-change-risk-snow-storm-forecast-colorado-switzerland

[vox_mundi]

Germany: Storms Halt Trains, Disrupt Motorways, Aviation   
https://dw.com/en/germany-storms-halt-trains-disrupt-motorways-aviation/a-47844905



As the evening approached, the DWD has predicted gusts of up to 120 kilometers per hour (75 miles per hour).

Similar velocities had been recorded in Belgium, said another service, wetter-online, based in Bonn.

Sweeping in across Britain from the northern Atlantic, "Eberhard" more or less tracked an earlier storm, "Dragi," that swept Germany on Saturday, prompting alerts by meteoalarm, a multilingual European weather service.

[vox_mundi]

Australian Climate Tool Identifies End of Winter by 2050 
https://phys.org/news/2019-03-australian-climate-tool-winter.html

... The new climate tool visualises data which shows by 2050, Australians will no longer enjoy winter as they know it today and will experience a new season the designers are calling "New Summer".

New Summer represents a period of the year where temperatures will consistently peak in many cases well above 40ºC for a sustained period. 

On my stove, that setting is called BROIL!

[Juan C. García]

The Elfstedentocht translates to “eleven cities tour.” It’s an ice skating race that measures about 135 miles and takes place on the canals that connect the 11 cities in the Friesland province of the Netherlands. The 110-year-old event is wildly popular — the next race is expected to attract 26,000 participants, 2 million spectators and 3,000 journalists and will surely draw the attention of nearly every person in the country — largely because of the long wait and grim forecast associated with it.

The race only takes place when conditions allow; when extreme winter bowls over the region, the temperatures drop, and the canals freeze over. But the Netherlands is no longer a romantic wintry wonderland, and there hasn’t been an Elfstedentocht since 1997, marking the longest drought ever between races. Climate change has endangered the race and is slowly dousing hopes across the province.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/sports/wp/2019/03/07/feature/in-the-netherlands-ice-skating-is-in-the-dna-a-warming-climate-could-change-that/?utm_term=.25af49c6a376

Warmer temperatures have caused race organizers in Alaska to alter the Iditarod’s route in recent years, and across both Canada and the United States, there are fewer frozen ponds safe enough for outdoor hockey. The ski and snowboard season starts later, and many resorts increasingly rely on man-made snow. One study estimates the ski season could be 50 percent shorter by 2050.

[vox_mundi]

Winds Near Hurricane Strength to Whip Central US, with White-Outs, Floods and Tornadoes Possible, Too   
https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2019/03/12/us/winter-storm-blizzard-snow-rain-wxc/index.html

An intense and sprawling winter storm is expected to develop starting Tuesday across the Great Plains, delivering hurricane-force wind gusts, severe rain, heavy snow and floods for days across a wide swath of the central United States. 

... "While not a tropical system, winds will rival what's seen in a Category 1 hurricane," said weathermodels.com meteorologist Ryan Maue.

The worst weather should be in the Plains, from Texas up to the Dakotas. "We expect a major blizzard to unfold with winds likely to approach hurricane force, heavy snow and massive drifts," according to AccuWeather meteorologist Alex Sosnowski....



----------------------

The Central U.S. Is About to Get Hit With a Bomb Cyclone   
https://earther.gizmodo.com/the-central-u-s-is-about-to-get-hit-with-a-bomb-cyclon-1833239904

... On Wednesday, as the storm pushes inland, its pressure—which drops as storms get stronger—is expected to dip into the range of 970 millibars. That’s roughly on par with an average Category 2 Atlantic hurricane and could challenge the all-time low pressure record for Kansas. The drop will be driven by the storm’s winds as they wrap around its core in a counter clockwise direction, bringing moist, warm air from the Gulf of Mexico in contact with cold air from the Upper Midwest and Canada. The movement of the winds is called cyclonic, and pressure is expected to drop more than 24 millibars in 24 hours, which means this storm is shaping up to fulfill the criteria for a rare inland bomb cyclone. It could even take on a hurricane-like appearance.

...  some models are indicating that this storm will strengthen so quickly, it could develop an eye-like feature in the center of the storm. This is a very rare for non-tropical systems and even more so for storms in the central U.S.”

[Klondike Kat]

I am currently holed up in Colorado, with enough supplies to weather the storm.

[gerontocrat]

I am currently holed up in Colorado, with enough supplies to weather the storm.

This storm - Storm Ulmer - is dead interesting as a tale of 2 halves.
To the West - SNOW
To the East - RAIN

It is a classic conflict twixt warmth and cold, and could be the last big one in the lower 48 of the USA for some time.

Wunderground.com has a good set of articles on the different parts of the storm and also a look at weather from next week.

Thursday's Severe Thunderstorm Forecast
Flooding Concerns in Plains and Midwest
In addition to the severe weather threat, heavy rain will likely lead to areas of flash flooding and river flooding in parts of the Plains and Midwest this week. The heaviest rain is expected to fall from now through Thursday.

Flood watches have been issued by the National Weather Service from the Upper Peninsula of Michigan southwestward to Kansas and eastern Colorado.

Flood Alerts
A broad swath of the central and southern Plains, Mississippi Valley and mid-South is expected to receive 1 to 3 inches of rain on already-saturated ground through Friday.

As temperatures warm up, any lingering snowpack will melt, adding additional runoff onto frozen soils unable to absorb the water. It is advised to clear any snow and ice from storm drains before the heavy rain arrives to help reduce the risk of flooding.

Ice jams will also be a major concern on frozen rivers as mild temperatures cause the ice to break up, which could become clogged in river bends or against obstructions such as bridges. As a result, a water rise would occur and may flood locations upstream from the jam. When a jam breaks up, flooding can occur in downstream locations.

[gerontocrat]

I am currently holed up in Colorado, with enough supplies to weather the storm.

Klondike, it looks like you are in the middle of a record breaker called Ulmer.  Lots of articles in Wunderground.com

Winter Storm Ulmer became a bomb cyclone in the High Plains of southeastern Colorado on Wednesday, when its central pressure dropped 24 millibars in just 13 hours.

________________________________________________________________
The name Ulmer is a Norse baby name. In Norse the meaning of the name Ulmer is: Famous wolf.

[Sigmetnow]

 97 mph wind gust confirmed at Colorado Springs Municipal Airport!

Not a tornado, or hurricane, or tropical storm.  A winter storm!

Image: wind at 850 hpa — roughly 5,000 feet (1,500 meters).

[Klondike Kat]

I am currently holed up in Colorado, with enough supplies to weather the storm.

Klondike, it looks like you are in the middle of a record breaker called Ulmer.  Lots of articles in Wunderground.com

Winter Storm Ulmer became a bomb cyclone in the High Plains of southeastern Colorado on Wednesday, when its central pressure dropped 24 millibars in just 13 hours.

________________________________________________________________
The name Ulmer is a Norse baby name. In Norse the meaning of the name Ulmer is: Famous wolf.

We appear to be far enough west to avoid the worst of the storm.  More snow, but less wind.  Looks beautiful from our warm confines.

[vox_mundi]

https://twitter.com/i/status/1105276498905387008

http://www.atmos.albany.edu/student/abentley/realtime/subtrop.php?domain=conus&variable=850_thetae

[vox_mundi]

https://www.al.com/news/2019/03/noaa-historic-blizzard-unfolding-in-the-plains.html?outputType=amp



The storm is bringing hurricane winds to the Rockies and as far away as Amarillo, Texas. Winds gusts equivalent to Category 1 and 2 hurricane winds were reported at the Denver International Airport and in Colorado Springs, the National Weather Service.

In New Mexico, heavy winds contributed to the derailment of a 26-car train near the village of Logan, according to a tweet from state police. No injuries were reported.


https://twitter.com/i/status/1105918488508579843

Storm set to intensify overnight

Wind gusts of 50 to 70 mph are expected through Thursday morning across Colorado, New Mexico, Texas and Oklahoma, CNN meteorologist Monica Garrett said. Some areas could see gusts as strong as 110 mph.

https://twitter.com/i/status/1105935674039885824

The NWS reported that Dodge City, Kansas, saw its lowest recorded barometric pressure in more than 100 years. A reading of 28.78 inches of mercury (974.9 millibars) was recorded Wednesday at the Dodge City Airport, shattering the previous record of 974.9 millibars, which was set in 1960 and stood for more than 100 years

https://twitter.com/i/status/1105891061195591682 


https://twitter.com/i/status/1106003065042321408 

The highest recorded wind gust (through 9 pm CDT) for this event belongs to Pine Springs, Texas with a gust of 103 MPH earlier today.  Find a full list of wind and snowfall reports in our latest storm summary here:

https://www.wpc.ncep.noaa.gov/discussions/nfdscc2.html

[vox_mundi]

Starting to look like 'The Day After Tomorrow'

[Sigmetnow]

U.S.: scenes from the winter side of the storm.

Darin Brooks (@UtahWxMan)
3/13/19, 4:28 PM
Whoa...watch the shopping cart corral

https://twitter.com/utahwxman/status/1105928595497799683
Video clip: extreme winds, snow, near whiteout conditions. Colorado.

Meredith Garofalo (@GarofaloWX)
3/13/19, 7:20 PM
WRECKAGE ON THE ROADS - This is why as meteorologists we try to give you as much notice as possible to terrible weather. This video was taken between Monument & Castle Rock, south of Denver off of I-25 Wednesday AM. Drive safe everyone!

https://twitter.com/garofalowx/status/1105971804189806593
Video clip passing highway vehicle pile-up. Colorado.

NWS Rapid City (@NWSRapidCity)
3/13/19, 7:28 PM
Well, that was a fun balloon launch...

https://twitter.com/nwsrapidcity/status/1105973964172611585
Video clip.  South Dakota.

[Sebastian Jones]

Meanwhile in Alaska, clear skies and warm weather and an open Bering Sea greet the front runners of the Iditarod sled dog race. Note the mushers with bad hands and no hat. Mushers were wearing rain gear a few days earlier.
https://iditarod.com/eye-on-the-trail-julien-takes-cape-nome/

[vox_mundi]

German Town Hit by Tornado 
https://dw.com/en/german-town-hit-by-tornado/a-47904211

A tornado carved "a path of destruction" through the German town of Roetgen, sweeping away roofs and breaking windows, firefighters said. Another storm is set to hit Germany soon.

Over 30 homes were damaged and five people injured when a strong wind funnel ripped through the town of Roetgen in western Germany.

Large-scale destructive tornados are relatively rare in Germany. Even so, German meteorologists noted 17 tornadoes in Germany last year.

[John Batteen]

Here are pictures from my farm after the blizzard.  Incredible.  If it was open before, it is still open after the blizzard.  Lots of bare road surfaces.  But if it was drifted before, oh boy, is it ever drifted.  Most of the area behind the outbuildings is 6-8 feet deep, with crests higher than that.

http://imgur.com/gallery/zChc4R7

[bbr2314]

Here are pictures from my farm after the blizzard.  Incredible.  If it was open before, it is still open after the blizzard.  Lots of bare road surfaces.  But if it was drifted before, oh boy, is it ever drifted.  Most of the area behind the outbuildings is 6-8 feet deep, with crests higher than that.

http://imgur.com/gallery/zChc4R7

That is absolutely bonkers. I wonder how bad the Mississippi flooding could get this spring. The river is already flooding in many locations.

[Shared Humanity]

Meanwhile, it hit 70F in Chicago yesterday with high winds and periods of heavy rain. Spring is coming in with a bang.

[Klondike Kat]

Here are pictures from my farm after the blizzard.  Incredible.  If it was open before, it is still open after the blizzard.  Lots of bare road surfaces.  But if it was drifted before, oh boy, is it ever drifted.  Most of the area behind the outbuildings is 6-8 feet deep, with crests higher than that.

http://imgur.com/gallery/zChc4R7

That is absolutely bonkers. I wonder how bad the Mississippi flooding could get this spring. The river is already flooding in many locations.

A lot is dependent on the spring weather.  The western snowpack is quite deep, which will result in significant spring runoff.  As I understand it, the eastern river system is already high, so there is the potential for heavy flooding.  However, a slow melting spring could alleviate these conditions.  We will just have to wait and see, but if I lived there, I would prepare early.

[be cause]

and in Norn' Ireland .. the chestnut at the end of the lane is in leaf earlier than in my memory .. drama on so many scales .. .. b.c.

[interstitial]

Emphasis added

The NWS reported that Dodge City, Kansas, saw its lowest recorded barometric pressure in more than 100 years. A reading of 28.78 inches of mercury (974.9 millibars) was recorded Wednesday at the Dodge City Airport, shattering the previous record of 974.9 millibars, which was set in 1960 and stood for more than 100 years

Must be that new math people keep talking about. I guess that is twitter for you.

[Rod]

I think someone just made a mistake when retyping the information because it combined two different tweets.

Below is a screen shot of the actual tweets from NWS Dodge City.  I find twitter to be a very helpful for keeping up to date on current information on weather and climate change.  But, like with anything, it is important to always check the source. 

[bbr2314]

Here are pictures from my farm after the blizzard.  Incredible.  If it was open before, it is still open after the blizzard.  Lots of bare road surfaces.  But if it was drifted before, oh boy, is it ever drifted.  Most of the area behind the outbuildings is 6-8 feet deep, with crests higher than that.

http://imgur.com/gallery/zChc4R7

That is absolutely bonkers. I wonder how bad the Mississippi flooding could get this spring. The river is already flooding in many locations.

A lot is dependent on the spring weather.  The western snowpack is quite deep, which will result in significant spring runoff.  As I understand it, the eastern river system is already high, so there is the potential for heavy flooding.  However, a slow melting spring could alleviate these conditions.  We will just have to wait and see, but if I lived there, I would prepare early.

The Missouri is a few inches away from the Brownsville nuclear plant's emergency status level and is forecast to breach it by almost 2 feet in the coming days.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cooper_Nuclear_Station

[gerontocrat]

Here are pictures from my farm after the blizzard.  Incredible.  If it was open before, it is still open after the blizzard.  Lots of bare road surfaces.  But if it was drifted before, oh boy, is it ever drifted.  Most of the area behind the outbuildings is 6-8 feet deep, with crests higher than that.

http://imgur.com/gallery/zChc4R7

That is absolutely bonkers. I wonder how bad the Mississippi flooding could get this spring. The river is already flooding in many locations.

A lot is dependent on the spring weather.  The western snowpack is quite deep, which will result in significant spring runoff.  As I understand it, the eastern river system is already high, so there is the potential for heavy flooding.  However, a slow melting spring could alleviate these conditions.  We will just have to wait and see, but if I lived there, I would prepare early.

The mid-west is flooding - big-time

https://www.wunderground.com/news/safety/floods/news/2019-03-15-record-flooding-nebraska-iowa-south-dakota-bomb-cyclone-snowmelt
Record Flooding in Nebraska, Iowa, South Dakota Follows Snowmelt, Bomb Cyclone; Rivers Still Rising Into Next Week

River level records have been smashed in four states in the Plains and Midwest, and river flooding will continue for several more days after rapid snowmelt and heavy rain from the bomb cyclone swamped the nation's heartland.

As of Friday, 24 locations have topped new record river levels, mainly in the Missouri Valley from southeastern South Dakota into Nebraska and western Iowa, but also in parts of Wisconsin and Minnesota.

While smaller creeks, streams and rivers have crested or soon will, larger main stem rivers might continue to rise and remain in flood for days from the central Plains to the Mississippi Valley, Ohio Valley and Great Lakes as this volume of water slowly moves downstream.

There were over 300 river gauges above flood stage in the Mississippi River and Missouri River watersheds.

The good news is mainly dry weather is expected in the nation's heartland for the next several days. However, markedly warmer weather is also expected, which will accelerate melting of lingering snow cover from the northern Plains into the northern Great Lakes. As a result, water from melting snow will continue to pour into smaller tributaries, then larger mainstem rivers, likely keeping those mainstem rivers relatively high over the next few weeks.

[vox_mundi]

Deadly, Historic Flooding Swamps Plains, Midwest; Nebraska City Cut Off, Nuke Plant Prepares to Shut Down
https://weather.com/news/news/2019-03-16-deadly-flooding-midwest-impacts



Nebraska's sixth largest city has become "an island" amid historic flooding in parts of the Midwest that has left one man dead, forced a National Weather Service office to evacuate and may force a nuclear power plant to shut down out of caution.

Fremont, Nebraska, lies about 40 miles northeast of Omaha and is home to more than 26,000 residents. As of Friday afternoon, flooded roadways coming in and out of the city were closed, leaving the city cut off, the Fremont Tribune reported.

On Saturday, a levee was breached northwest of the city, prompting law enforcement officers to warn people to get to higher ground.

... Wight told weather.com there is "concern" for the nuclear plant but that it "is perfectly safe."

"We don't expect any safety issues but we do expect they will get flooding around them and if it gets too far they will shut it down," Wight said, adding that it will not be an "issue with power supply" because they can get power from other sources within the grid.

"It is something we're really watching closely," Wight said

... Mark Becker, spokesman for the Nebraska Public Power District, previously told the Omaha World-Herald that if the river rises to 45.5 feet this weekend, as projected by the NWS, the nuclear power plant, which accounts for 35 percent of NPPD's power, will have to be shut down.

 The water surpassed that level early Saturday and reached an all-time record 45.64 inches.

Thursday morning, the hydroelectric plant at the Spencer Dam on the Niobrara River was lost when the dam broke and a large ice floe jammed a hole in the building[/b



After surveying the extensive flooding from the air, Nebraska Gov. Pete Ricketts said in a Friday press conference that it was the "most widespread flooding damage we've had in the last half-century."

"Even when we were away from the water system, we saw that the fields were very saturated," he added.