Not Just Vermont: Misery Loves Company In Worldwide Floods

On July 12, the day after the Lamoille River receded enough,
Vermont highway crews begin repairs near the Wrong
Way Bridge along Route 15 in Cambridge. 

 Vermonters know from painful recent experience that we don't want anybody else to go through what we just did this month.  

Alas, a lot of people are going through this. Not only is the world baking in record heat this summer, It's also drowning in floods. 

It's everywhere. In neighboring New Hampshire and Massachusetts, floodwaters destroyed roads and houses in a daylong deluge on Sunday. 

In Pennsylvania, at least five people, including children, died in a remarkably sudden flash flood that caught them unaware in a semi-rural part of Bucks County. The flooding spread to New Brunswick, New Jersey Tuesday, nearly drowning  a family trying to escape the onrushing water. 

Just Wednesday morning, news broke of a flash flood emergency and "particularly dangerous situation in western Kentucky, especially around the city of Mayfield.  Nearly a foot of rain fell on the area in just a few hours, necessitating numerous water rescues. 

If Mayfield rings a bell, it's because it was the town decimated by a huge tornado in December, 2021.  Like that hurting town needs another big disaster. But there you go. 

It goes far beyond the United States. 

At least 40 people died in South Korea this month as flash floods lashed much of that nation.  Many of the victims were trapped in a tunnel when it almost instantly filled up with water. 

Monsoon floods strike India every summer, but this year's version is pretty extreme, even by their standards.

Floodwaters approached the famed Taj Mahal, though water is not expected to enter the World Heritage Site. However, it's rare for the flooding river to rise to levels so close to the compound. 

Severe floods last week also struck Japan, China and Turkey.

Floods occur every year somewhere, and this has gone on for millennia. Some of these floods are horrific.    But just like the greater propensity we've seen for heat waves in recent summers, floods have become a bigger threat, too. It's another climate change thing. 

As Phys.org points out:

"For every 1 degree Celsius (1.8 degrees Fahrenheit) that the atmosphere warms, it holds approximately 7 % more moisture. According to NASA, the average global temperature has increased by at least 1.1 degrees Celsius (1.9 degrees Fahrenheit since 1880.

'Sixty-eight degree Fahrenheit can hold twice as mulch water as 50 degrees Fahrenheit,' said Rodney Wynn, a meteorologist at the National Weather Service in  Tampa Bay. 'Warm air expands and cool air contracts. You can think of it as a balloon - when it's heated the volume is going to get large, so therefore it can hold more moisture.'

 This summer, El Nino has taken hold. El Nino generally heats the world up. It's working in concert with climate change to give us a glimpse of what the world's future will be like in the not distant future.

Don't think for a minute Vermont is free from any more giant floods since we've just been through two in 12 years. 

A Dartmouth study indicates extreme precipitation events in the Northeast are projected to increase by 52 percent by the end of the century. They definite these extreme events as 1.5 inches of rainfall or melted snow within a day. 

 The Dartmouth researchers said rainfall extremes have already increased markedly since about 1996.   The projected increase  in extreme rainfall would be blunted somewhat if real steps to sharply reduce carbon emissions take hold, but I'm not counting on that. 

One thing we can count on, sooner or later. Vermont will suffer another episode like we have this month. I hope Vermont officials continue to take seriously their commitment to build back with even more resilience in mind.