6/24/2023 0 Comments Brings heavy rain midatlantic![]() And while the rugged topography of West Virginia helped concentrate flooding in narrow valleys, the urbanization of the impacted area of Maryland contributed in this case. Unlike the massive floods that swept through parts of West Virginia in June, this flooding “was very localized,” Rosa said. “It was pretty impressive,” Luis Rosa, a meteorologist with the NWS office for Baltimore and Washington, D.C., said. The total for the whole event was 6.5 inches. More than 4.5 inches of rain fell in just one hour, the NWS reported. The high moisture content of the atmosphere also meant there was plenty of water for the storms to wring out. Ellicott City happened to be caught where one storm formed right after the other and where slow-moving rains continually fell over the same area. The rains and ensuing floods were the product of stormy weather across parts of the mid-Atlantic and Northeast over the weekend. That trend is expected to continue as temperatures steadily rise. While downpours that intense are rare, heavy rainfall events have been on the rise in the region and nationwide thanks to the warming of Earth’s atmosphere caused by accumulating greenhouse gases. Rainfall that intense is a 1-in-1,000 year event for the area, according to the National Weather Service. The streets of Ellicott City, Md., became raging rivers on Saturday, with cars tossed around like toy boats after nearly 6 inches of rain fell in just two hours.
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