Wet, Wet, Wet: Incredible Rainfall In Nation's Middle; Vermont Soggy, Too

A sad aerial view of farmland in Illinois, near the Indiana border. Image
via Twitter by Chad Colby @TheChadColby

I've begun my annual late spring/early summer sabbatical in Yankton, South Dakota and I was very dismayed by the landscape as our plane began its descent Friday afternoon into the airport in Sioux Falls.

It was May 31, and most of the expansive fields beneath us hadn't been planted yet. Too wet. The Big Sioux River had also spread out into rich farmland, forming a long lake near Sioux Falls. The Big Sioux River is now way, way too big.

During the 90 minute car drive to Yankton, many fields looked like marshes. Rural side roads were closed either by mud, or the fact that the flooding Big Sioux, Little Sioux, Vermillion, James and other rivers had submerged all the low water crossings.

This was all a testament to how incredibly wet it has been in the middle of the nation. Shockingly, this swampy scene in southeastern South Dakota is nothing compared to incredible rains in floods just to the south, in Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Missouri and other states.

Yes, it's been quite wet in my home state of Vermont (more on that further down in this post) but the never-ending rains are just overwhelming for millions of people in the Plains and Midwest.

MIDWEST SWAMPED

The Weather Channel says that parts of southern Kansas picked up about 60 percent of their normal annual rainfall in May alone.

Kansas City had more than a foot of rain, good enough to make this May the wettest on record and the third wettest of any month. Bartlesville, Oklahoma had more than 15 inches of rain during the month. Some pockets of northeastern Oklahoma reported more than 20 inches of rain during May.

As you've seen on the news, record, devastating flooding continues, especially along the Arkansas River in Oklahoma and Arkansas.

NPR reports that Arkansas Governor Asa Hutchinson said the Arkansas River flood is costing the state $23 million a day. The flooding will go on for at least a week - if it doesn't rain. Unfortunately, the area around the river can expect another one to five inches of rain over the next week, with locally higher amounts.

Levees built 60 years ago along the Arkansas River were not designed to withstand a flood this high, and lasting this long. The longer the flooding lasts, the more water can seep into the levees, which can cause failures. The Arkansas River has been high since March.

Even worse for the overall national economy, much of the Mississippi River has been flooding since March. It's the longest flood on the mighty river since 1927. When this river floods, barges can't move along the river. Farmers who actually have fields dry enough to plant can't because critical seeds, fertilizers and other supplies that normally come up on barges along the Mississippi can't, reports Fox News. 

The Mississippi has been blocked by flooding so that locks and dams don't work between St. Paul, Minnesota and St. Louis, Missouri. "We have never had the river closed for this long in a single year, Tom Heinfold, chief of operations for the U.S Army Corps of Engineers told Fox News.

WET VERMONT

Storm clouds gather over Lake Champlain near St. Albans on
May 10. It was a wet day in a very wet month. 

The situation has not been nearly as desperate in Vermont. There's really no flooding of note during May.

Lake Champlain had been in minor flood stage all month, just yesterday finally falling below flood stage for the first time since April 20. It was the second longest flood recorded on Lake Champlain. Only the epic flood of 2011 lasted longer.

The Lake Champlain flood sustained itself through May because of the incessant rains in Vermont and New York. Burlington had 5.15 inches of rain during May, which is 1.7 inches above normal. That's not any kind of record, but the rain was consistent. Measurable rain fell on 19 days during the month.

It was also cool and cloudy, which helped prevent evaportation. The mean temperature in Burlington ws 54.9 degrees, which was 1.4 degrees cooler than normal.

It was even wetter and colder in eastern Vermont. Montpelier had 5.75 inches of rain which is 2.38 inches above normal. Temperatures in the Capital City ran three degrees colder than normal for May.

St. Johnsbury takes the prize for a miserable May. They had 7.04 inches of rain in May, which is 3.68 inches above normal and has to make this May among the top 10 wettest on record there. St. Johnsbury also had a bone chilling May, with the temperature running four degrees colder than normal.

CLIMATE CHANGE FOOTPRINTS

The nation's wet weather is consistent with climate change. Yes, a hotter world can make droughts worse, because if there are no  handy storms around to drop rain, the higher temperatures encourage evaporation, drying things out faster.

(As an example, northwestern Vermont had a very humid summer last year, but had few storm systems to interact with the humidity. The summer was also record hot, so the combination of heat and missed opportunities for storms made us temporarily fall into a drought.)

But hotter air can hold more moisture. If there are storms that create lift in the atmosphere, you're going to get precipitation. If there's more "precipitable water" as they call it in the air because of a warming climate, it will rain harder.

As NPR reports: "According to the most recent National Climate Assessment, 'The frequency and intensity of heavy precipitation events across the United States have increased,' especially in the northern and central parts of the country.

That means, although this flood is breaking records across the central U.S., it may not be the last time officials, in infrastructure, will be forced to deal with a disaster of this magnitude. On the Arkansas River, levees were built more than 60 years ago in most cases, and were not necessarily designed to withstand the kind of constant onslaught of high water that comes with a multiweek flood."

This flood is all part of a recent trend, we can say that. Last year was the wettest on record for the nation as a whole. This year, at least so far, is giving that 2018 wet record a run for its money.