Roger Pielke Jr. explains :
Boulder did not actually experience a “1,000-year flood.” In fact, according to an analysis presented by fellow CU faculty member John Pitlick yesterday, using standard hydrological methods, Boulder experienced between a 25- and 50-year flood. (I am focusing here on Boulder, I have not seen similar analyses for other Colorado streamflows, though they are sure to come.) Pitlick further noted that the flood waters did not reach the 50-year mark on the Gilbert White memorial (seen at the top of this post.)
If some place gets a flood every year for three years in a row…
..is it a 100 year flood, 10 year flood, every year flood?
this is as stupid as naming storms…
the very fact that there is such a thing as ‘100 year flood’, or ‘1000 year flood’, or ’50 year flood’ indicates the cyclic nature of such things. climate quacks cannot seem to grasp this mode of thought.
If this ever gets out the sheeple will be confused and disappointed.
Whipping the sheeple into a frenzy is the game of the gov/ media. No event is too small that it can’t be propagandized. As Steve said, a 14mph puff of wind was enough for NOAA to give it a name.
How do declare something is a 1000 year event when you have 100 years of records if you’re lucky?
The same frame of mind as when you declare something a Thousand Year Reich but you are lucky to last a dozen.
Looks like it’ll take more than a 1 in 1000 year flood to get the whole of Colorado out of permanent drought:
http://droughtmonitor.unl.edu/DM_state.htm?CO,W
New Mexico is the real gem this week. Some places got almost their average annual rainfall last week, and are listed as exceptional drought.
As an almost 20 year, but former, Boulder resident (in the Boulder Creek floodplain, no less), this strikes me as correct. I lived with this hazard, enjoyed the creek often daily, and heard the annual flood sirens in the spring in April or May.
Boulderites typically wirry about the wrong things and idealize utopian solutions like Children reading Harry Potter – but flash flood threats remain real. Now they know.