I wonder how bad the floods are going to be in Central Europe this year?
Just had news that our engineers cannot sample a site as not only is the snow cover still there, the rocks are actually still iced together. We\’ve got to wait for the snow melt (hmm, 10 days, two weeks?). That\’s OK, doesn\’t actually delay anything important.
However, makes me wonder a bit. Spring flooding isn\’t so much about how much snow melts, it\’s how fast the snow cover melts. And a late spring which moves very quickly to warm up (when it finally does) would, at least I guess it would, lead to the snow melting much faster than usual.
Thus to higher floods.
Anyone actually know about this? I ask be cause in Usti they\’ve a pole by the river recording flood levels. 2006 seemed to flood the entire train station for example. So, does a late spring mean higher floods and if so, what does anyone think this years\’ levels will be?
Yes, that’s how it goes:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winter_of_1946%E2%80%931947_in_the_United_Kingdom#March
Just ask the Pole. If he’s been there all that time, he’ll know.
I’m sure a few brickies and chippies in this country will be glad that at least one of them didn’t make it over and got fobbed off measuring river levels…
Formertory and John Miller
I guess that’s another one of those ‘you think your job is bad’ moments.
The worst-case for flooding is when warm rain falls on the snowpack. A few decades ago this happened in western Oregon, and the Rouge River level peaked at about 35 meters above normal. So watch for the weather forecasts that predict rain.
ZT (5)
True. One May / June the rain fell in Chamonix and the glaciers half melted. I had a friend who had a good cellar and all the labels got washed off.
The insurance paid out and we had some tasty tastings. “What’s this then?”
Not many glaciers in Bohemia, on the other hand.