If you’re coming to Florida, bring yer wellies (although waders would be better).
We got 20-25 inches of rain in Fort Lauderdale on Wednesday night, followed on Thursday by – wait for it – more rain. Many streets are still closed, although the airport opened this morning. Worst of all, my house was clobbered.
Here’s the airport, fit only for seaplane service!
Watching storm intensities growing on news reports from around the country and the world and combining that with rising sea levels I believe Florida will be experiencing even more problems in the future.
In Washington State they are already seeing communities impacted by King Tides where high water has had serious impact on low lying communities in Seattle and other low lying areas along the coast. A couple of the Native American reservations out on the Pacific Coast have had to move their housing to higher ground due to the increased encroachment of the rising tides and eating away at the land.
About ten years ago my BA flight into Miami tried to land, but had to go round again because of a sudden vicious rain storm. We landed about half an hour later, in sunshine. As we taxied, I could see that the water on the taxiways was deep enough to cause a wake behind each wheel of other taxying aircraft.
It took me another half hour to get through immigration and customs (almost the fastest entry to the US I ever had) and when I stepped out of the terminal, the ground was completely dry. Then the humidity hit me and when I got into my hire car 29 mins later, it was like I had been out in that rain storm, I was that soaked in sweat!
My first thought was that we were having a king tide/rising sea problem. But we’re told this came from a low-pressure system in the Gulf, and a huge rainstorm stalled over Fort Lauderdale for hours. That doesn’t mean, of course, that we won’t have major problems fairly soon in South Florida.
You’re in the Seattle area, right? My son lives in Woodinville.
Yep, that’s a subtropical welcome. In the rainy season, which doesn’t usually begin until late May/early June, we tend to get thunderstorms every afternoon. The water table is already high below the peninsula, so the groundwater rises quickly. The sun takes care of that in short order. Our problem this week was torrential rain (up to 25 inches) that went on for hours.
It was pretty bad here. But we get hurricanes from time to time, so we’re sort of used to angry nature. All part of living in paradise, or so they’ve been telling me for 22 years.
A flooded house is a dreadful thing. The family farmhouse was flash-flooded in 2005 and it took a whole year before things began to get back within spitting distance of normal. There was a lot of psychological damage to deal with, as if rectifying the physical damage wasn’t challenging enough.
Stay safe @bhoyo think we’re all in for some extreme weather events. We went from extreme heat and horrific bushfires to 2 years of horrendous floods and below average temperatures.
Yep, the change is clearly underway. Our ground is now so sodden that even a regular old Florida afternoon monsoon leaves deep puddles all over the place. Time to head for the hills?