This pickup truck, owned by former Victor resident Steve Petersen, appeared on the front page of the June 13 edition of the Kansas City Star. The truck is shown on top of what was once Petersen’s house in Manhattan, Kansas. Petersen and his family were on their way to Victor when the storm struck. Chris Oberholtz Photo / Kansas City Star. Photo courtesy of the Kansas City Star, http://www.kansascity.com/
As reported by Mitch Traphagen of the East Iowa Herald, June 19:
VICTOR - Snowfall and ice storms have turned into rainfall, tornados and flooding, leading many in East Iowa to wonder what is next? Could the weather get worse?
Extreme weather has become so common that if people haven’t been affected themselves, almost everyone knows someone who has...
It seems the 100-year floods are coming about every 10 years or so. What was thought to be the flood of the century in 1993, has been eclipsed beyond anyone’s imagination today. This was a 500 year flood.
But not everyone has been surprised by recent events.
In 1998, the United States Environmental Protection Agency published a report entitled, Climate Change and Iowa. In it, the EPA predicted a 20 percent increase in summertime precipitation - and also stated that an increase in the frequency and intensity of summer thunderstorms is possible. Based on the events of a decade later, that report seems ominously accurate.
In 2004, a report by the National Climate Data Center found a trend towards an overall increase in precipitation, temperature, streamflow, along with increases in extreme weather events that included a 14 percent increase in “heavy rain events” and a 20 percent increase in “very heavy rain events” during the 20th century.
In 1996, NOAA created the U.S. Climate Extremes Index which tracks changes in extreme weather events. The chart shows weather precipitation events as somewhat more extreme than average in the early part of the last century, falling to below average in the 30s, late 40s, late 50s and around 1970. In 1980, the trend picked up - by 2007, the index revealed extreme precipitation events were occurring at a pace well above average. The four highest points in the index, covering a century of data, have occurred in the past 15 years. One other thing is obvious on the index: As much as the averages rise, they also fall. In other words, based on past history, as extreme events increase in frequency, we should also expect that at some point, they will decrease.
Source: The East Iowa Herald, 19 June 2008, accessed
