Midwest Flooding Has Been Quite Scary, Probably Worst Since 1993

Interstate 29 in southeastern South Dakota looks like
an immense lake after torrential rains caused 
catastrophic flooding in the region. 

 The flooding in South Dakota, Iowa and Minnesota this month has been scary to say the least, as a summer of storms have unleashed havoc in the region.   

This is far worse than the usual torrential thunderstorms and local flash floods fairly common in the Midwest each summer.

You might have seen the horrible images of collapsing houses, whole solid little Midwestern towns under water, so many square miles of cropland drowned. 

At first, it was the smaller creeks and rivers that caused all the destruction. The high water has now moved into bigger rivers. Even the mighty Missouri and even mightier Mississippi are now flooding. And that flooding is forecast to get worse.

Per the Washington Post: 

"As of Monday, rivers across the Missouri River basin were at major flood stage: The James, Vermillion and Big Sioux rivers in South Dakota and the Des Moines and Little Sioux rivers in southwestern Minnesota and northwestern Iowa, according to National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration data."

This flood hits me more in the gut than usual because I have relatives in eastern South Dakota and in Minnesota.

Luckily, their towns, like Yankton, South Dakota, have so far avoided the worst of the flooding, though the James River nearby Yankton is cresting at major flood stage. 

The torrential downpours have tapered off for now, but the damage is not done done. A whopping ten to 18 inches of rain fell on chunks of the Missouri and upper Mississippi River basins last week.  No wonder the flooding is still getting worse.   

Examples of extreme damage are everywhere.

As of Tuesday, several major highways remained closed by flooding, including Interstate 29 in southeastern South Dakota. In that area, McCook Lake and the Big Sioux River combined to wash at least two houses away. Many more were damaged or destroyed, and severely undermined by rushing water. 

In Iowa, at least, 1,900 homes have been damaged or destroyed by the flooding.  Part of a railroad bridge collapsed into the floodwaters at North Sioux City, Iowa. In some of the most widely reported and viewed flood news, water detoured around a dam in Mankato, Minnesota, threatening worse flooding. The dam itself was still holding as of Tuesday. 

 The flooding hit because South Dakota, Iowa and Minnesota were on the northern edge of the big heat dome that caused record high temperatures from Texas to the East Coast. The northern edge of a heat dome like this is known as the "ring of fire" because torrential rains and thunderstorms often ride that edge of the heat. 

This is consistent with climate change, too. A warmer atmosphere can contain more moisture. Storms can grab that extra moisture and dump it as torrential, flood-producing downpours. I don't know to what extent climate change had to do with this Midwest disaster, but the potential fingerprints are there.

The rainfall over the next few days in the flood zone looks milder than it's been, but still enough to potential cause issues. Rainfall in Iowa could amount to up to two inches over the next seven days.  

Some of that expected rain is likely to come down as pretty intense downpours, increasing the chance of local floods as those gullywashers hit already soaked ground. 

Even with the relative lack of downpours, the flooding in the larger rivers could last well into July.