This isn’t getting a lot of press attention, but for the first time in its 57-year life, Garrison Dam’s spillway is being opened during flood season in North Dakota. There will be unprecedented flooding downstream. Other dams on the Missouri (such as Oahe) are also releasing water because they are full of rain and snow runoff. Tens of thousands of people won’t be flooded, mainly because there isn’t that much housing in low-lying areas and because of heroic efforts shoring up flood dikes.
I grew up in this area. As a child, I was told that the reason we didn’t have floods was because of those huge dams (Garrison is the fifth largest earthen dam in the world). That’s not true anymore.
Tim F.
Mountain snow is melting all at once when it used to take all year. Watch for record droughts (or at least low water) in those same areas come late summer.
West of the Cascades
A hell of a lot of tribal land was flooded to build these dams, and they don’t even work as intended … what a great country.
theturtlemoves
It has been strange for me to read about, as well, since I used to work at a certain cow-spotted computer company based right across I-29 from Dakota Dunes in southeast South Dakota. That area is apparently expected to be (potentially) flooded for months. My student teaching was in that school district, so it definitely has a personal connection. Glad I moved, but sad for those who remained…
Han's Solo
Meanwhile in Austin we’ve had one day of partial rain in, what, six months? It was about two weeks ago. I knew it was raining when I heard my lawn orgasm.
mds
Yup. All this heavy weather is a clear sign that we’re living in the End Times or that God has withdrawn his favor from our secular humanist left-wing Israel-hating nation. It’s all right there in the Bible, as long as you look at it through a green filter and are an illiterate dumbshit. In either case, you should vote Republican.
Zifnab
@Han’s Solo: Governor Perry says you should pray harder.
RalfW
But of course we’ll keep whistling past the graveyard.
Nope, no correlation between record floods, massive tornadoes and all that to global climate change. Can’t do it, that would be politicizing tragedy.
And, of course, admitting that scientific predictions can in fact, um, predict!
Han's Solo
@Zifnab: Ah yes, Governor Perry… I find pundits talking about Perry getting in the race too funny. If you want to know why he won’t Google his name. Santorum is not the only rightwing moron with a Google problem.
nodakfarmboy
@Tim F.: A major part of the problem is that large swaths of Montana received a year’s worth of rain in about a weeks time. On top of this, he Corps of Engineers had drawn down the reservoirs over the winter to be prepared for the snowmelt, and then April saw record snowfalls in parts of the Rockies. It’s basically a worst case scenario. Bismarck, ND is in big trouble right now. They’ve been frantically throwing up levees to protect the southern third of the city from going under before the Corps opens up flows from the dam. Garrison is about a foot from reaching the top of the spillway, at which point they’ll have to open the flow.
It’s going to be an “interesting” summer on the plains.
MAJeff
It’s a big flood year. Over here on the eastern side of ND, we had it earlier this month because the Red flows south to north. Here in GF, it was the third highest flood on record. Now, we’re welcoming folks from the Minot area as their south-flowing river floods. And, Amtrak had to shut down the Empire Builder route through North Dakota because Devil’s Lake keeps rising. Fun times.
JGabriel
Jon Stewart Pizza Rant — Stewart goes ballistic on Trump for A) taking Palin for chain pizza, and B) eating pizza with a fork.
Stewart’s compendium of good pizza joints in the city is actually pretty accurate, BTW. It’s missing a couple of big ones (Patsy’s in B’klyn and Harlem, Nick’s in Queens), but hits most of the places generally accepted as the best in the city. And, of course, every neighborhood has 2 or 3 places that are nearly as good — if you’re visiting friends in the city, check with them — but Stewart’s list is a good starting point if you’re coming here without any acquaintances to guide you.
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JPL
@RalfW: Flooding can be tied to global warming but more study is needed before the scientists can state that the violent storms are related.
At least that’s what I read. I guess when a few more hundred die from tornadoes this year they can affirm it.
The temperatures in GA are about 10 to 12 degrees higher than average. I’ve been doing yard work in the early morning. It was 90 by noon yesterday.
kdaug
@Han’s Solo:
Desertification – we’re soaking in it. Thinking hard about xeriscaping the front yard.
@Zifnab:
Fixed for accuracy.
Luthe
@Tim F.: And here I had hoped that the record snow-pack would help *alleviate* the drought problems in the western states…
(I would love to move to the Southwest, but cannot in good conscience do so because I don’t want to make the water problems there even worse.)
Southern Beale
Unrelated but I have a question: Is it just me or is Sitemeter basically useless on WordPress blogs? Almost all of my referring URLs come up as “unknown”.
WereBear
@Southern Beale: Switch to Statcounter. They have a plugin, too.
Violet
@Han’s Solo:
And we’ve got a 20% chance of rain here on the weekend and it’s all the weather guys are talking about on TV. A few weeks ago when we had a chance of rain and thunderstorms they actually cut into programming to track the weather. This in area where strong thunderstorms usually only get a passing mention, it rains so much.
justawriter
To be fair, the nation’s premier news source was right on top of the story from the beginning.
I now live about 25 miles from the dam. Lake Sakakawea was about 40 or so feet lower just three years ago because of a series of dry winters in the Rocky Mtns. Common knowledge of the time said it would take 10 years of normal runoff to refill the dam. Resorts along the lake had to extend their boat ramps up to a half mile to reach the water. Last year the lake shot up about 35 feet and as mistermix said, hit an all time high this year.
Actually this is part of a pattern that has been going on since 1993. This is where I used to live. I also lived in Grand Forks, home of the famous flood of 1997 and Minot, which is experiencing flooding for the first time since flood control projects were completed in the 1960s. If North Dakota is a laboratory for climate change, being the lab rat isn’t much fun.
Carnacki
NOAA report shows CO2 levels at highest level ever and it’s looking bad
WereBear
It’s not just propaganda and greedy oil companies; a lot of it is people who just don’t want to believe it.
Chris
@mds:
Think you’re onto something. Whether it’s global warming or, back in the day, the prospect of nuclear holocaust… there are people out there who aren’t particularly inclined to take care of the world when they believe that 1) it could be destroyed on a whim at any moment anyway, and 2) if it does, their free tickets to heaven kick in.
nodakfarmboy
@MAJeff: Ahem… Devils Lake, not Devil’s Lake. As a native of the town, I feel compelled to point this out. :)
The Snarxist Formerly Known As Kryptik
Dude, all that snow run-off collecting and everything just means that global warming is a lie. After all, if it was REALLY warming so bad, there wouldn’t have been that much snow in the first place, amirite?
Martin
@Zifnab: Perry says that humans can’t affect climate, but to pray for rain. Figure that one out.
Southern Beale
@WereBear:
Thanks, will do …
negative 1
Well my family gauge for the right-wing winds has moved from saying that there is no global warming, to now that there is global warming but that it is not man-made and there is nothing we can do about it.
So, you know, progress.
PeakVT
@Luthe: The SW has water problems, but they’re exacerbated by our own stupidity, just like most of our other problems. One of the biggest mistakes was not installing water meters in places like Sacramento and Fresno. Another was basing the allocation of the Colorado on the flows of the 1920s, which turned out to be a very wet decade. The whole Colorado compact has needed renegotiation since the 1960s, and it still really hasn’t been done. And so on. If you plan to xeriscape, I wouldn’t feel guilty about moving to the SW. There is enough water for reasonable household use. Ag sucks up far more.
RalfW
@JPL: I get that individual weather events cannot be tied to climate change. But the predicted patterns of intensifying weather extremes does seem to be coming to fruition. And not just here. Australia has had record drought but also record rains. Lots of other weather anomalies globally.
I’m just incredibly frustrated that we have a theocracy in place in the U.S. that is nearly as anti-science as the Papacy in the time of Galileo. (Yes, hyperbole. So sue me.)
WereBear
Sadly, I don’t find this to be hyperbole.
They aren’t burning anyone at the stake… yet.
Violet
I really wish that global climate change hadn’t been branded as “global warming.” It just leads idiots to say “It was cold here this winter. See! No global warming!” But if it was unusually cold, then that would fit right into the climate change discussion. “See! It was extra cold! The climate really is changing and doing unusual things!”
Whoever was in charge of branding this issue really bungled it.
Anoniminous
@JPL:
As of yet, everything that is happening is “normal.” Places that get tornadoes, like Massachusetts, are getting tornadoes; places like Texas that get droughts are getting droughts. There’s no smoking gun.
What can be said is the increase in severe global weather over the past 2 years was predicted, based on the Global Warming Theory, and the predictions has been more accurate than those not based of GWT.
Which is really a major success for GWT … but try explaining that to Conservatives, TeaBaggers, and the Corporate Shills in the media.
ETA: @Violet:
Do you REALLY want scientific and technical communication to be based on sales and marketing?
My personal opinion: AAAAAAAARRRRRGGGGGHHHHH!
Chris
@negative 1:
That’s going to be their default (already has been for a while). No matter what happens, even if it’s blindingly obvious that global warming is happening, they can always fall back on “but it’s not man-made.”
Which in turn gives their preachers leave to either talk about how it’s the Apocalypse coming, or how God’s punishing us for being too faggy and feminist. And their pundits will talk about how if the DamLibruls hadn’t cut NASA funding to pay for “these people,” we could just escape to Mars, but it’s their fault that we’re all going to die. And even if anyone ever gets serious about fixing things, their politicians will bitch that the government shouldn’t do it cause it’s inefficient, they should just shovel money to Wall Street so the fix-all private sector can do it…
Chris
@Violet:
Liberals: “There’s global climate change going on.”
Conservatives: “But there’s always climate change going on! It was pouring when I to grab a hot dog for lunch, but by the time I stepped outside, the sun was shining again!”
WereBear
@Violet: Another case of “You can’t fix stupid.”
mistermix
@nodakfarmboy: Also, too: the Red and Devils Lake flooding is pretty common. Floods in Bismarck and Minot are really rare. 1969 was the last one in Minot. You tell me if you remember a big flood in Bismarck – I don’t remember one since the 60’s.
Mudge
If the Garrison diversion had been built, we could flood Canada instead. Not much dam foresight.
Violet
@Chris:
Yeah, but the “no, that’s the weather changing, not the climate” retort is pithy and easy to say and explain. “It was extra cold here this winter because global warming changes weather patterns and means a change in the gulf stream and an increase of arctic air coming further south” is much harder to say and people’s eyes glaze over before you’re halfway through.
daveNYC
@JGabriel: Eh? Patsy’s is a chain now. Don’t you mean Grimaldi’s? (assuming you mean the joint down under the Brooklyn bridge)
comrade scott's agenda of rage
In what, a week or two, that wall o’ water will hit us here in Central Misery. Even then, our media overlords won’t report on it since it occurs in Flyover Country.
It’s been the wettest spring here since the 500 Year flood of 1993 and the 100 Year Flood of 1995.
Of course it’s possible that the floods up there will simply spill out into bottom land and it won’t impact, much, down here. That’s what used to happen here until the Corps diked the shit out of the lower Missouri system.
OTOH, if we do get pounded, it’ll be interesting to see what sprawling burbs like Chesterfield in STL do when faced with epic flooding into areas that in 1993 weren’t developed.
Davis X. Machina
@efgoldman: The deadliest pre-Joplin tornado in US history was the 1953 Worcester twister. So it does happen…
Montysano
Since flooding is the subject, let me highly recommend John Barry’s “Rising Tide: The Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 and How It Changed America”. It’s history written as a page-turner.
Paul in KY
@JGabriel: Someone said he chose the place because of the big windows that made it easy for the paparazzi to film. That sounds about right for him/her.
Roger Moore
Some of the problem is that the reservoirs behind those huge dams have collected enough sediment to substantially reduce their capacity. A huge dam loses its value if you don’t dredge regularly enough to keep up with sedimentation. IIRC, the Egyptians are having a similar problem with the Aswan dam and Lake Nasser.
Whiskey Screams from a Guy With No Short-Term Memory
It’s a tribal thing. I have co-workers who KNOW that we are undergoing global climate change, KNOW that it is caused by human activity…but they won’t say so publicly. They get an agonized look on their faces, like they’ve been asked to say that the Pope diddles kids.
Which is probably exactly the dynamic at work. This isn’t about science, which they are too stupid to understand anyway. It’s about faith and tribal identification, and they know which tribe they belong to, and it’s not the one lead by the black guy.
Tom Hilton
@Han’s Solo: And in California, the snowpack was at 180% of normal and there’s a storm system coming in this weekend that’ll dump another 2″ or rain on the Bay Area (2′ of snow in the mountains). Weird weather indeed.
jimbob
Omaha (River City) represents. We’re at near-record flood stage and waiting for the Muddy Mo to rise another 10 feet. This is supposed to last through the fall.
I’m heading out to my Republican buddy’s farm north of town (up-river) to help him evacuate stuff. He’s lost his crop but has crop insurance. Oh, and he’s waiting for further evidence of climate change . . . .
Chris
@Violet:
My point was that they’ll always find something.
If you look at the polls, the drop in people who believe in man-made global warming in the last few years is almost entirely driven by conservatives. Those guys will believe anything that NewsCorp spends enough time and energy supporting – easy and pithy comebacks would have no more effect on them than facts. So I don’t think it would matter what you called it, things would be the same.
Whiskey Screams from a Guy With No Short-Term Memory
@Anoniminous: Yes, very much so, because the people that you need buy-in from, and the people that you need to change their lifestyles – probably in a fairly dramatic fashion – certainly are not capable of understanding the actual science.
So yeah, you need to sell it to them.
Linda Featheringill
The Missouri eventually empties into the Mississippi, which hasn’t gone down to normal levels yet. So more flooding all the way down to the Gulf, I should think.
Linda Featheringill
The mountain snow is melting all at once? What the hey? What’s going on?
And yes, that could lead to some extremely dry areas this summer and fall.
chopper
@JGabriel:
whenever people visit me in brooklyn and ask for a good pie i mention lucali, then go ‘oh shit, the owner is probably still in the hospital after getting stabbed by some mafia goon in broad daylight’ and watch their eyes get all wide and scary.
Perfect Tommy
@JGabriel: I grew up in Brooklyn, NY, and the strangest way of eating a slice I ever saw was a done by a neighbor’s young nephew from Newfoundland. The boy rolled the slice into a tube starting from the point and then held it like a hot dog.
chopper
@RalfW:
you’re the adolf hitler of hyperbole.
Anoniminous
@Chris:
Right Wing Authoritarians:
These clusters create dysfunction in RWAs when new knowledge necessitates a change in their actions. Without getting too far into it, the upshot is they would rather do nothing than make drastic changes to the norms they have accepted.
Catsy
@Violet: Saved me the trouble of making this point. Even among liberal friends I’ve been trying to make an effort to use “climate change” instead of “global warming”.
Relatedly, the weather in the Pacific Northwest has been downright fucking bizarre this last year. It’s June and it’s supposed to get up to a high of 59 today–almost ten degrees cooler than the historical average. It’s been unusually cold since last winter, and rainy even for the PNW.
chopper
@Davis X. Machina:
naw, the deadliest pre-joplin twister was the tri-state. tho the worcester tornado was a right bastard.
evinfuilt
@mds:
Look, do you want to take responsibility and make sacrifices and change your lifestyle… (ie climate change and intervene in our destruction)
or
Do you want to blame “those” people, you know who they are… (ie God did it to punish us)
It’s either our fault or their fault, and half the country says its their fault.
Origuy
@Tom Hilton: Let’s hope it comes down as snow in the mountains. I remember one year where the Sierra had a huge snowpack and got warm torrential rains. That was the year Sacramento and Marysville got flooded.
Violet
@Chris:
Yeah, I know, but I guess I meant the mistake was ten, twenty, however many years ago when it was being branded. Had it started out initially as “global climate change” then when all these weird weather things happen, it doesn’t seem quite so outside the realm of possibility that they’re related. It’s a mental thing. Climate change = weird weather. But global warming \= weird weather, not if the weird weather is tornadoes or massive hurricanes or too much snow.
Citizen_X
Well, apparently, Palin’s bus was within minutes of running into the Springfield tornado (warning: Politico link).
So imagine: Sarah Palin gets taken up into the air by a tornado, in Massachusetts! A miraculous ending to the Palin saga (whether you love her or hate her)!
Jager
My brother (who lives in Bismarck) is getting tongue kisses from his wife for talking her out of wanting to build a big new house on the Missouri bottomlands south of of the city. He said the prediction for Bismarck is floodwaters could reach the Kirkwood Mall on the south side. My relatives say in many parts of ND a wheel hasn’t turned in the fields so far this year.
BerkeleyMom
My 80 year old father has been working filling sandbags for the past week. It is dire.
Albert Mond
But just to put things into proper perspective and context … Al Gore is fat …
Citizen_X
@Violet: Oh, for fuck’s sake. Scientists don’t do “branding.” They don’t give a shit about “marketing.” Do the terms global warming and climate change accurately describe the phenomena? Yes, and that’s what matters most. They’re both acceptable.
evinfuilt
@Anoniminous:
What I love about #3 on that list is how quick they can make something new conventional, and start believing its always been that way.
Linda Featheringill
@Jager:
Not good. I would assume that they have a short growing season up there anyway. Pretty soon it might be too late to plant because the crop would never mature.
trollhattan
@nodakfarmboy:
So, instead of just one devil you have several? You folks must have heaved a collective sign of relief on May 22.
Also, too, weird weather–it’s all over. Our weather is alway predictably boring this time of year. Or not.
kdaug
@chopper: +1
Anoniminous
@evinfuilt:
Orwell nailed it:
chopper
@Citizen_X:
it’d be cooler if she was riding a bike.
Nutella
@comrade scott’s agenda of rage:
I can tell you what those somewhat-less-sprawling burbs in Chesterfield did in 1993. They had built suburbs on low-lying farmland. Residents were paying a separate tax levy for the old agricultural levee by the river. When the ’93 floods came they were all shocked, shocked to find that their houses were in a flood zone.
They and their asshole repub congressman Jim Talent demanded that the federal government save them from the consequences of their decisions to move away from the city (and the city people, IYKWIM)at no cost to themselves.
They also had the gall to complain that it wasn’t fair that Earth City MO had not had that kind of flooding. Earth City had spent millions of its own money to build levees but it just wasn’t fair that the people in Chesterfield who had not should get flooded when Earth City didn’t.
They will be just as stupid this year.
Nutella
And speaking of people who are bound and determined to ignore the consequences of their own behavior:
The desert southwest has the highest domestic water usage in the country. An apples-to-apples comparison of domestic per capita water use shows that Arizona uses 140 gal/day, Navada 206, Illinois 90, Massachusetts 82, Kentucky 50 and national average 98. Note that this is residential use only.
When I was in Phoenix some years ago I was shocked to see how many back-yard swimming pools there were in the desert. I was even more shocked to see that they frequently attempt to air condition the outside: Water sprays in restaurant patios, air conditioned tents for special events (with sides rolled up!). And green lawns in the desert FFS. Are all these still common there? Probably, since my per capita figures are from 2005.
See page 26 of this USGS document for 2005 data.
Roger Moore
@Citizen_X:
I’d rather imagine her being crushed under a falling house.
Anoniminous
Jeff Masters ‘splains It All for YOU!:
This establishing and functional pattern has been constantly repeated east of the short grass prairie line this year. Until this patterning modifies by temperatures in Canada/arctic increasing, lowering the potential energy of weather systems, we’re going to continue to get “abnormally severe weather.”
Need to understand, the global weather we’re been seeing: reduced snow cap, supercell tornadoes in New England, abnormal heat in the western Russian plains, drought in France, & etc. etc. etc. is happening under a ~0.7C global temperature increase.
Just wait until it gets to ~2C! Ya’all ain’t seen nuthin’ yet.
Roger Moore
@Nutella:
Sure the desert areas have the highest water usage. It’s a desert, so we don’t get much free water in the form of rain and snow. People in high precipitation areas can maintain nice yards without watering them year round. Maybe- probably- people in desert areas should take the hint and not try to maintain beautiful green lawns where God clearly didn’t intend them to be, but until they do they’ll have higher water consumption.
Nutella
@Roger Moore:
A nice green lawn being the birthright of every American citizen, even the ones in the desert.
A New Englander friend got into a dispute with some southwesterners once. They were all agreeing that the federal government must spend whatever is necessary to provide them with the water they want to use. After all, water is required for life so the government should provide it free. He pointed out that heating oil was required for life in his neighborhood but he did not get it or expect to get it free from the government. They disagreed vehemently. Their green lawns in the desert must be subsidized but his heated apartment must not.
Stefan
A New Englander friend got into a dispute with some southwesterners once. They were all agreeing that the federal government must spend whatever is necessary to provide them with the water they want to use. After all, water is required for life so the government should provide it free.
I’m assuming they also agreed that since medical care is required for life that the government should also provide that for free…?
Cermet
@Roger Moore: Don’t forget swamp coolers (use water to cool the air in a house – rather effiecent compared to pure electric but does use water) and all those damn trees! Trees along with grass are the really stupid part of how people waste water in the amerika SW.
Tom Hilton
@Origuy: 1986, was it? Something like that? Yeah, I remember. My younger brother was living in a second-floor apartment in Sacto that year, just across from a levee; when he went out on the levee at one point he realized the water level was pretty much at eye level for someone in his apartment.
But it’s pretty durn cold these days, so I’m fairly confident it’ll be snow in the Sierra. Extended warm spell later on could be problematic, of course…