Flooding Socks U.S. East Coast; Threat Continues Today

A stranded motorist in Detroit Monday. 

As expected, areas of heavy rain hit parts of the nation's East as another slow moving, strangely strong (for summer) storm system lumbers through.

The Detroit, Michigan area got the worst of it on Monday with its second wettest day on record, and widespread flooding in that region.

Two people died in Detroit area during the flood, including a 100 year old woman found in her flooded basement.

Dozens of people were rescued from cars, most of the region's Interstate highways flooded and some motorists were trapped in their cars for up to 18 hours, hemmed in by flash flooding ahead of and behind them.

There was even more flooding Tuesday, especially in the Washington DC/Baltimore area.  It was hit and miss, as always. Washington DC proper only got an inch or two of rain, while the Baltimore area and nearby areas were swamped with four to eight inches of rain.

The Baltimore-Washington airport was flooded, with a lot of the cars in the long term parking lot submerged. Plenty of travelers are going to get an unpleasant surprise when they return home.

The flooding spread northward into New Jersey last night and early this morning, rainfall rates that briefly reached  up to three inches per hour were hitting parts of Long Island and Connecticut, where flash flooding was ongoing there.  

Flooded parking lots at the Baltimore-Washington
airport on Tuesday.  

The storm is actually moving a bit slower than many forecasters thought, so in some areas the rain lingered longer than hoped, making the rainfall totals go way up.

Up here in Vermont, it scarcely rained overnight Tuesday and early Wednesday, despite forecasts of heavy rain after midnight.

That's because the storm is moving slower than expected, and the rain lingered in New York State instead of blasting into Vermont.

But it'll come in today, and it will rain hard at times today in Vermont, and other areas of New England.

In addition to the flooding now going on in Connecticut and Long Island, flash flood watches are up for all of southern New England and New Hampshire, the southeastern third of Vermont and in southeastern New York State.

In southern New England, torrential areas of rain and thunderstorms are the threat. In New Hampshire and Vermont, it's very wet winds from the southeast rising up the eastern slopes of the mountains to wring out possibly enough rain to cause local flash floods.

Further north in northern New York and Vermont, it hasn't been as rainy lately as others sections of the Northeast, so the ground can absorb more of the expected moderate to heavy rain. Plus, precipitation won't come down as hard there today as it will in southern New England.

Elsewhere in the nation, flash flood watches are also up for Utah and parts of surrounding states due to possible torrential thunderstorms with the seasonal monsoon.

For the nation as a whole, this summer has really been the season of the flood. They keep hitting repeatedly, and (almost) everywhere.

To drive home the point of how dangerous flash floods can be, we have two videos. The first shows a flash flood busting down the doors of a hospital in Kearney, Nebraska last week.

The second video shows a complete moron in Colorado recently driving into flood water, with the inevitable result. Jerk. Turn around, don't drown. (Love the very end of that video with the idiot opening the car doors)