Summer Floods in the Eastern US

September 12, 2001

D1387p2

Provided by: NASA/GSFC Landsat Program
Summary authors & editors: Jim Foster

The photo above shows the results of flash flooding after a deluge in eastern Tennessee a few weeks ago. Flooding not only effected mountainous and rural locals in Tennessee, Kentucky and Virginia this summer, but urban flooding was in the news as well. In early August, parts of Washington D.C. received up to 8 inches of rain, producing some of the worst flooding our Nation's Capital has experienced in over 50 years. Eastern Pennsylvania, including the Philadelphia suburbs, was also hit hard by flooding in mid June. A number of counties in the 4 states mentioned above were declared Federal disaster areas - as was Washington D.C. Most of the summer flooding has been attributed to slow moving convective storm systems containing copious amounts of water vapor.

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