
In the past, we’ve seen truly devastating storm surge impacts. It poses the most threat to both life and property. Our meteorologists always stress that storm surge is the most dangerous aspect of any tropical system. This can cause storm tides to reach over 2o feet! It can also cause flooding very quickly.Įxtreme flooding occurs when storm surge happens at the same time as high tide. It can flood large coastal areas at the same time. Storm surge is an extremely dangerous form of flooding. Learn about storm surge from one of our expert meteorologists, Andrew Rosenthal in the below snippet from our weather safety warmup webinar on hurricanes: There are three parts of a storm that create this surge. Storm surge is always a result meteorological storms that cause higher than normal tides on the coast. Storm surgeis an abnormal rise in water level in coastal areas over and above the regular astronomical tide. Higher-than-average tides What is Storm Surge?Īnother type of flooding that is often associated with coastal flooding is storm surge. These conditions typically come from storms at sea like: The next type of flood you should know about is a coastal flood.Ī coastal flood is the inundation of normally dry land areas along the coast with seawater.Ĭoastal flooding is typically a result of a combination of sea tidal surges, high winds, and barometric pressure. In case you didn’t know this already, a catchment area is any area of land where precipitation collects and runs off into a common outlet. On the other hand, low-rising river floods typically occur in large rivers with large catchment areas.

Sudden river flooding events occur more often on smaller rivers, rivers with steep valleys, rivers that flow for much of their length over impermeable terrain, and normally dry channels. River floods can happen suddenly or slowly. Persistent thunderstorms over the same area for extended periods

They are:Įxcessive rain from tropical storm systems making landfall River flooding typically happens for four reasons. This includes everything from small streams to the world’s largest rivers. This flooding can happen in all river and stream channels. The first type of flooding we will explore is river flooding.Ī river flood occurs when water levels rise over the top of river banks. Let’s take a detailed look at the different types of floods. They include:Īs you can infer from the list above, flooding can happen anywhere, including both coastal and inland locations. To better answer the question of “What is a flood?” we’ll answer what each specific type of flooding event is.Īccording to our friends at the National Severe Storms Laboratory, there are five types of floods. They can also come on quickly or build gradually. They are the most common and widespread natural severe weather event.įloods can look very different because flooding covers anything from a few inches of water to several feet. Floods are an area of study in the discipline of hydrology.

Let’s start with a flooding definition.Ī flood is an overflow of water that submerges land that is usually dry. When discussing floods, it’s important to understand what they are.

#Whats an areal flood watch pdf
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