Welcome to a Changed Climate: It Even Floods When it's Sunny

A new report by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration documents the increasing frequency of nuisance floods and "clear-sky flooding."

1 minute read

June 11, 2016, 5:00 AM PDT

By James Brasuell @CasualBrasuell


Clear-Sky Flood

jo Crebbin / Shutterstock

Doyle Rice reports: "El Niño and rising sea levels linked to global warming spurred a record number of days of "nuisance flooding" last year in seven coastal U.S. cities, according to a federal report."

The report comes via the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. As an example of the strange circumstances of flooding events documented in the report, Rice mentions Wilmington, North Carolina, which "recorded an all-time high of 90 days, or one-quarter of the year, partly underwater from the "clear-sky" flooding, which isn't caused by heavy rain from a storm…"

"Charleston, S.C., also topped its record with 38 days and Key West, Fla., with 14 days," adds Rice. The article includes more details about how these records came to be, as well as accounting for the effects of all the new nuisance flooding.

Thursday, June 9, 2016 in USA Today

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