The death toll from last weekend's record flooding in Tennessee, Kentucky, and Mississippi has risen to 24, making it the deadliest non-tropical storm or hurricane flood disaster in the U.S. since the October 1998 Central Texas floods that killed 31 when a cold front stalled over Texas. As flood waters recede today, the toll from last weekend's floods is expected to grow higher. Particularly hard-hit was the Nashville, Tennessee area, where ten fatalities were reported. The city had its heaviest 1-day and 2-day rainfall amounts in its history over the weekend. A remarkable 7.25" of rain fell on the city Sunday, breaking the record for most rain in a single day (6.60", set September 13, 1979.) Nashville's third greatest day of rainfall on record occurred Saturday, when 6.32" fell. Nashville also eclipsed its greatest 6-hour and 12-hour rainfall events on record, with 5.57" and 7.20", respectively, falling on Sunday. And, only two days into the month, the weekend rains made it the rainiest May in Nashville's history.
Rainfall records were smashed all across Tennessee, Kentucky, and northern Mississippi over the weekend, with amounts as high as 17.73" recorded at Camden, TN, and 17.02" at Brownsville, TN. According to Chris Burt, the author of the excellent book Extreme Weather, the 13.30" that fell on Camden in 24 hours just missed eclipsing the state's all-time 24-hour precipitation record, the 13.60" inches that fell on Milan on September 13, 1982. Jackson, Tennessee had its rainiest day in its 63-year weather history on Sunday, 7.93". Bowling Green Kentucky had its heaviest 2-day precipitation event on record, 9.67". Records in Bowling Green go back to 1870.
Figure 1. Satellite-estimated precipitable water at 23 UTC (7 pm EDT) Sunday, May 2, 2010. Precipitable water is a measure of how much rain would be produced if all the water vapor and cloud moisture through the depth of the atmosphere were to fall as rain. Values above 50 mm (about 2 inches) are frequently associated with flooding. Sunday's precipitable water image showed a tropical disturbance crossed Mexico into the Gulf of Mexico, dragging a plume of very moist air northwards over the Southeast U.S. Image credit: University of Wisconsin GOES Satellite Blog.
Figure 2. Flood forecast for the Cumberland River in Nashville, Tennessee. Image credit: NOAA.
The record rains were accompanied by a surge of very warm air that set record high temperature marks at 21 major airports across the Eastern U.S. on Saturday. This is not surprising, since more moisture can evaporate into warmer air, making record-setting rainfall events more likely when record high temperatures are present. Accompanying this warm air was moisture from a tropical disturbance that crossed over Mexico from the tropical East Pacific over the weekend (Figure 1.)
The record rains sent the Cumberland River in downtown Nashville surging to 51.86' this morning, 12' over flood height, and the highest level the river has reached since a flood control project was completed in the early 1960s. The previous post-flood control project record level was 47.6', set on March 15, 1975 (the river hit 56.2' in 1929, before the flood control project was built.) The river has now crested (Figure 2) and is expected to recede below flood stage by Wednesday morning. There are no further rains in the forecast this week for Tennessee. At least four rivers in Tennessee reached their greatest flood heights on record this week. Most remarkable was the Duck River at Centreville, which crested at 47', a full 25 feet above flood stage, and ten feet higher than the previous record crest, achieved in 1948 (to check out the flood heights, use our wundermap for Nashville with the "USGS River" layer turned on.)
Funding issues to take 17 Tennessee streamgages offline
According to the USGS web site, seventeen Tennessee streamflow gages with records going back up to 85 years will stop collecting data on July 1 because of budget cuts. With up to eighteen people in Tennessee dying from flooding this weekend, now hardly seems to be the time to be skimping on monitoring river flow levels by taking 17 of Tennessee's 94 streamflow gages out of service. These gages are critical for proper issuance of flood warnings to people in harm's way. Furthermore, Tennessee and most of the northern 2/3 of the U.S. can expect a much higher incidence of record flooding in coming decades. This will be driven by two factors: increased urban development causing faster run-off, and an increase in very heavy precipitation events due to global warming. Both factors have already contributed to significant increases in flooding events in recent decades over much of the U.S. The USGS web site advertises that users who can contribute funding for the non-Federal share of costs to continue operation of these streamgages should contact Shannon Williams of the USGS Tennessee Water Science Center at 615-837-4755 or swilliam@usgs.gov. Tennessee is not the only state with streamgages at risk of closing down; fully 276 gages in 37 states have been shut down or will be shut down later this year. If you have questions about specific streamgages, click on the state of concern on the USGS web page of threatened stream gages.
Oil spill update
The oil slick from the April 20 explosion and blowout of the offshore oil rig Deepwater Horizon has retreated from the coast, thanks to a slackening of the persistent onshore winds that have affected the northern Gulf of Mexico over the past week. According to the latest NWS marine forecast, winds will be light and variable through Wednesday, resulting in little transport of the oil slick. Winds will then resume a weak onshore flow at 5 - 10 knots, Thursday through Friday, then reverse to blow offshore at 5 - 10 knots over the weekend. The net result of this wind pattern will be little transport of the oil slick. The only areas at risk of landfalling oil over the next five days will be the mouth of the Mississippi River in Louisiana, and the Chandeleur Islands. The latest forecast of Gulf currents from the NOAA HYCOM model (see also this alternative view of the HYCOM ocean current forecast) show weak ocean currents affecting the region during the remainder of the week. These currents will not be strong enough to push any oil southwards into the Loop Current over the next five days, so the Keys and South Florida are safe from oil for now. I'll have a post on the long-range prospects for oil to enter the Loop Current later this week, and a discussion of how a hurricane might affect and be affected by the oil spill.
Figure 3. Forecast location at 6pm CDT Tuesday, May 4, 2010, of the oil slick from the Deepwater Horizon blowout. Image credit: NOAA Office of Response and Restoration. See also the trajectory maps available at State of Louisiana web site.
Jeff Masters
If you saw my other pics of this sculpture you cam get an idea how high the Cumberland river has risen. when I left it was still getting higher.
Harpeth River Flooding (
XMLP)
I am a wrecker driver for Martin's wrecker service. We were called to remove the vehicles that got caught in the flooding on interstate I 24 westbound near the Bell Road exit in Nashville Tennessee. Of course this is after the waters had subsided. It was roughly 200, 250 cars and trucks that got caught up in the flood..
This is looking east - the Cumberland River is just on the other side of the buildings.
Parking via Mother Nature (
jadnash)
This car drove into the swiftly moving water at the Belle Meade Kroger and was thrown up against a parking deck. Luckily someone got a ladder and dropped it down to break the rear window and the driver climbed out safely!
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Watch the video...uh, best guess? They don't even have that. Quit defending those jerks!
Lol, i wouldn't dare to guess who your talking about.
What are you smoking this morning? Oh yes, I'm sure Obama has had enough time to fix anything Bush has done. Have you been asleep for the last 10 years? What was done in 8 years under Bush, like this oil spill, may never be fixed. Good Lord dude.
What a freaking JOKE!...ROFLMAO....somebody needs to go back to beddybye i think.
As others have noted, that image is "not according to scale". This graphic is better:
"Originally, the risers (represented by the blue line in the graphic above) were affixed to the blowout preventer on the seafloor, and extended 5,000 feet straight up to the "moon pool" of the Deepwater Horizon. When the drilling vessel sank, it took the riser piping and bent it around like a pretzel.
"The remnants of the riser system now follow a circuitous underwater route. According to BP, the risers extend from the wellhead up through the water column to about 1,500 feet above the seabed. Then the riser system buckles back down toward the seafloor. (Frankly, I'm astonished that it all held together as well as it has. It's a credit to the manufacturer, which I'll discuss below.)
From http://www.drillingahead.com/forum/topics/transocean-deepwater-horizon-1 (Scroll down about halfway.)
Man that iggy list is handy...
The riser is piled up on the seafloor like spaghetti.. as it is "stiff", it doesn't all just "lay down flat". Some of it arches up off the seafloor 1500 feet before returning to the floor. I don't understand why this concept is so difficult to grasp.
Link
YES IT IS!
Hey Aussie,
I have tried to keep politics out of it whenever possible but unfortunately it creeps back in. I understand this is a weather blog, however, we are also on topic in discussing the oil spill as Dr. M has it in the topic.
The politics are just an annoying by-product of that topic.
This graphic is actually wrong. The riser is going up vertically from the BOP, not horizontally. It should be noted that this is the only place where 1500 ft is mentioned.
Oh, look! It's Bush's fault. LOL
Pathetic and inflammatory. No evidience that an acoustic switch would have done anything. But, hey, it makes for a good story and from a Kennedy no doubt!
The Ixtoc I oil spill and Padre Island
Closeup of 20to25centimetre/8to10inch thick tarmat
Yes i understand that the good Dr has mentioned it in his blog, I no its hard for it to stay out. but when people start bickering about it, that's where i draw the line
Understood. I hear you. Although I am guilty of mixing it up politically on here I really don't care for it. Sometimes it's hard to sit there and resist the urge to correct misinformation and/or lies.
if people want to believe the wrong info and lies then when the time comes in there lives they realize what they though and was told was right was actually wrong reality sets in.
English grammar is hard, eh?
He said "What damage bush did may never be fixed. Likewise, the damage of this oil spill could be irreparable."
When politics blinds your understanding of language, you're getting pretty sad.
I have not seen any current discussion about dropping a container over the BOP. The three leaks appear to be: (i) end of drillpipe (capped now, oil that was coming from there is now likely emerging from the other two leaks, (ii) somewhere in the riser laying on or near the seabed where it feel when the rig broke free and sank, and (iii) at a kink in the riser pipe above the BOP where the riser "folded over."
The current containment effort (dome) centers on the "middle of the riser" leak. I shouldn't be surprised that they get this in place and it functions to some extent. Tricky, but possible, and would be a great PR boost. However ...
I have not seen any serious discussion yet of dropping a dome (anyone heard of one being made at the moment?) over the riser leak where the riser folds over above the BOP. That is likely to be an even trickier task because the BOP is 40 feet tall (and who knows how far above that the riser is bent ... I have seen no mention of this). i.e. the containment dome may have to be VERY VERY large to cap from the bent riser to the seabed. And yes, you don't want to be knocking off the riser or further damaging the BOP trying to get that monster in place.
The other problem with capping that "bent-over" riser section is that further access to that section of riser and the BOP will be blocked, leaving the only permanent fix the relief well, which is a major technical challenge in itself (I've seen it described as trying to thread a needle in the dark using only your feet) ... they need to intersect a 7" well at serious depth (and pressure and temperature) some distance away from the current semi sub on site. There has also been talk about possible leakage around the wellhead itself (don't want to even think about the wellhead coming free). Remediation of any problem here would be blocked by doming the BOP + riser.
Another serious issue with blocking the BOP + riser with a dome is that the sandblasting of the riser pipe at the kink will continue, with expected eventual failure leading to a free-flowing well at up to 60,000 bbl/day. I suppose that if they had managed to block things with a dome and then got a gusher from the riser pipe kink, they could pull the dome and try the other plan, which seems to be the "real" plan ...
... and that is to *cut off* the existing riser (perhaps creating something similar to a free flowing well if the riser is providing most or all the the flow restriction ... no one really knows if the BOP is providing partial flow restriction). And then to drop a new BOP on top of the now cut-off riser. Keeping in mind that oil may now be flowing at up to 60,000 bpd (2.5 million gallons/day) - this is close to 2000 gallons a minute. You can imagine the difficulties associated with placing a new BOP on top of a riser at depth with this kind of flow rate, and with properly securing it ... and with somehow sealing that riser pipe between the BOPs so it can withstand pressures of up to 30,000 psi (by the by, the current BOP is rated at 15,000 psi) ...
... as others have said, this is an UGLY situation. If the media is downplaying it, it is because they have not delved sufficiently into the details, because those details are hard to communicate, and because the possible truth is so scary and unacceptable.
Pray that kinked riser does not succumb to the sandblasting it is receiving - if it does, the capping and doming (if successful) operations on the other two leaks will be for naught.
That is my read on the current situation and what is being done about it. I wish that it were a more positive read. I hope I'm wrong about the state of affairs. I'm not seeing any easy outs for BP or for the Gulf.
WTO
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