MaxedOutMama
Friday, December 12, 2008
Caution: Northern Delaware Flooding
I just looked at the weather service gauges, and I think those folks have been caught napping.
I'm up in the NE, and it's been pouring. I heard the creek rise last night. This morning I went to look at a couple of streams and the Delaware, and it looks ugly.
In northern Mercer County there are huge chunks of debris floating down the river, and they are really booking along. In the space of about ten minutes I counted several boats, what looked to be a chunk of dock or a piece of a house, massive trees, and massive tree stumps. Water level was rising after nine this morning about a foot an hour judging by creek backup.
I don't see the normal alerts. If you know someone who lives in the northern Delaware River basin, you might want to call and warn them. The Delaware River is really only dangerous at 50 year intervals, but we are still at the tail end of one of those 50-year intervals. During that time, it can and does flash flood, and when it does, the local tributaries flash too. The ground in parts of PA and NJ is just saturated from a combination of freezing/rain cycles.
Hopefully this will not be as bad as it looks right now, but I went and looked at a riverside hill, and the amount of runoff about six hours after the major rain had ended was sinister.
You folks a little further down have some time....
I'm up in the NE, and it's been pouring. I heard the creek rise last night. This morning I went to look at a couple of streams and the Delaware, and it looks ugly.
In northern Mercer County there are huge chunks of debris floating down the river, and they are really booking along. In the space of about ten minutes I counted several boats, what looked to be a chunk of dock or a piece of a house, massive trees, and massive tree stumps. Water level was rising after nine this morning about a foot an hour judging by creek backup.
I don't see the normal alerts. If you know someone who lives in the northern Delaware River basin, you might want to call and warn them. The Delaware River is really only dangerous at 50 year intervals, but we are still at the tail end of one of those 50-year intervals. During that time, it can and does flash flood, and when it does, the local tributaries flash too. The ground in parts of PA and NJ is just saturated from a combination of freezing/rain cycles.
Hopefully this will not be as bad as it looks right now, but I went and looked at a riverside hill, and the amount of runoff about six hours after the major rain had ended was sinister.
You folks a little further down have some time....
