'Unprecedented' Flooding Event in Detroit Fits Global Warming Pattern
IMAGE: CARLOS OSORIO/ASSOCIATED PRESS
Detroit received 4.57 inches of rain in just a few hours on Monday, breaking its record for that date and coming in second place for the all-time wettest calendar day, behind a 4.74 inch deluge in July of 1925. The heavy rain — which included more than an inch of rain falling in just 24 minutes — led to some of the most widespread flash flooding on record in the Motor City.
Every major interstate was affected by the flooding, which longtime weather forecasters in the area called an unprecedented event. Several major roadways, including portions of Interstate 94, Interstate 75, and Interstate 696 remained closed as of Tuesday morning. The floods led to numerous high water rescues, and at least one death is being blamed on the flash flooding.
"In about 140 years of record-keeping, only one day in Detroit was wetter," WXYZ Detroit reported. But "considering how the metro area has changed since [that day in] 1925, this may have been the most serious flooding event ever recorded in Detroit."
According to The Weather Channel, Detroit residents abandoned 1,000 cars overnight due to the high waters, while others spent a long night in their cars, penned in by floods ahead and behind them.
The Michigan State Police announced it has sent dive teams to search cars for bodies at the bottom of inundated freeways, but no one had been reported missing.
“We’ve got a lot going on. It’s not just the water on the roads. We can’t clean up the roads, we’ve got to get the cars off the roads,” said Michigan Department of Transportation spokesperson Diane Cross, in an interview with the Detroit Free Press. She said the pumping systems used to keep water from piling up on roadways were simply "overwhelmed" by the pace and amount of rainfall.
In Warren, Michigan, which is in the northeastern part of the metro area, there were about 500 people stranded in a Lowe's store during the height of the storm, due to flooding in the parking lot, according to the Detroit Free Press. The Warren Police Department saw its property and evidence rooms flooded, along with three police vehicles, the paper reported.
The storm, which was the result of a deep flow of moisture northward from the Gulf of Mexico that collided with a cold front moving in from the west, stunned area weather forecasters.
The same storm system is bringing torrential rains to the Mid-Atlantic states on Tuesday, with extensive flooding reported in the Baltimore and Washington, D.C. areas. As of 3:30 p.m. ET, Baltimore had recorded its fifth-wettest day on record.
Paul Gross, chief meteorologist for WDIV-TV in Detroit, wrote on his station's website that the event was absolutely unprecedented in his long career in the city.
I have lived my entire life and worked my entire career here, and I have never seen as widespread a flooding event. Yes, I vividly remember the May 2004 historic month of rain — our second wettest month ever with 8.46 inches of rain — but that was a bunch of rainy days that really added up.I also remember some individual intense thunderstorms that flooded ONE freeway. But I don't ever remember EVERY freeway being flooded out.
The storm, which is likely to have caused tens of millions in damage to a city that is already struggling economically, is an example of the type of event that is already occurring more frequently and severely due to manmade global warming.
One of the major findings of climate science studies during the past several years is that heavy downpours have increased in frequency and intensity during the past three to five decades, particularly in the Midwest and Northeast U.S. Such trends are likely to continue, according to reports like the National Climate Assessment, which was released in May.
That report showed a sharp uptick in heavy precipitation events between 1958 and 2012. As the White House has emphasized in communicating about how the U.S. can better withstand the impacts of climate change that are already here, these precipitation events can lead to expensive and deadly floods that the country's infrastructure, such as the interstate highway system, is ill-prepared to withstand.
Similar extreme rainfall and flooding events have occurred this year in Pensacola, Florida, in Boulder, Colorado last year, as well as Calgary, Canada.
IMAGE: NATIONAL CLIMATE ASSESSMENT
Part of the reason why these types of events are on the upswing now is because a warmer atmosphere holds more water vapor, which can be wrung out of the sky by thunderstorms and other weather systems. Global average surface temperatures have already warmed by about 1.6 degrees Fahrenheit since 1900, with more warming expected during the next several decades or more. Research has shown that global average water vapor is increasing as temperatures rise.
Also, some studies have proposed that weather patterns may be changing in ways that favor prolonged heavy rainfall events lasting for many days.
That emerging research, which links such weather pattern changes to rapid Arctic warming, is still hotly contested within the climate science community, however.
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