Martha Shulski on Floods

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03/24/2022 Added

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Climatologist and professor Martha Shulski talks about what caused the 2019 floods and how to prepare for the future.

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[00:00:00.371](gentle music)
[00:00:04.760]What led up to the flood of 2019 here in Nebraska?
[00:00:08.030]There was an interesting
[00:00:09.510]and kind of unique set of circumstances
[00:00:11.980]that ultimately led to the flood
[00:00:13.890]and the impacts that we experienced.
[00:00:15.470]And it wasn't necessarily this intense storm event
[00:00:19.370]that we experienced,
[00:00:20.203]but it was the conditions that were set in place
[00:00:23.170]that kinda set the stage to have this serious flooding.
[00:00:26.730]We had a fairly wet and cold fall and winter and spring
[00:00:33.030]kind of leading into it.
[00:00:34.280]In general we were wetter than normal
[00:00:36.200]and colder than normal.
[00:00:37.670]And particularly in February,
[00:00:39.580]the month kind of right leading up to the storm
[00:00:42.730]we were wet and it was eighth coldest on record in Nebraska.
[00:00:46.290]And there's significant snowfall around the state.
[00:00:48.680]So the soils were at or near saturation.
[00:00:52.860]They were frozen to a significant depth.
[00:00:56.140]We had a fairly good amount of snow pack
[00:00:58.940]that was sitting on the surface.
[00:01:00.480]The rivers and streams
[00:01:01.880]where there's a lot of ice sitting on it.
[00:01:03.770]So when this storm system did come through
[00:01:06.610]which dumped a pretty good amount of rain
[00:01:09.800]in the eastern half of Nebraska,
[00:01:11.320]then we had blizzard conditions and snowfall in the west.
[00:01:14.760]But when we did get those several inches
[00:01:17.010]of rain and relatively warm temperatures,
[00:01:20.740]it was hitting a saturated and frozen soil,
[00:01:24.210]so there was really nowhere for the water to go,
[00:01:26.890]but to rise and to cause the flooding.
[00:01:29.940]One thing that we can do after having experienced this
[00:01:32.570]is evaluate where are our vulnerabilities.
[00:01:35.550]That's one thing that an extreme event like this does
[00:01:38.310]is it identifies where are you most vulnerable.
[00:01:41.950]Where, the infrastructure, where did that fail
[00:01:44.830]and where can we increase our resiliency?
[00:01:47.400]So I think being best prepared as we can
[00:01:50.370]is really critical moving forward.
[00:01:52.650](gentle music)

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Martha Shulski on Floods

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