Parts of Louisiana’s disastrous, ongoing flooding has been upgraded by meteorologists to once-in-1,000-years rainfall, with other areas classified as 500-year and 100-year events, nola.com reported Monday, as scientists warn that such storms are growing more and more frequent as the planet heats up.
“On Tuesday, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) is set to classify the Louisiana disaster as the eighth flood considered to be a once-in-every-500-years event to have taken place in the U.S. in little over 12 months,” the Guardian reports:
And nola.com reported that the flooding “was triggered by a complicated, slow-moving low-pressure weather system that dumped as much as two feet of rain on parts of East Baton Rouge, Livingston and St. Helena parishes in 48 hours.”
“The record two-day rainfall in those areas had a 0.1 percent chance of occurring in any year, the equivalent of a ‘1,000-year rain,’ according to the Lower Mississippi River Forecast Center, based at the Slidell office of the National Weather Service,” the local outlet wrote.
The ongoing flooding is the second “1,000-year” rain to strike the state this year. Noted environmentalist Bill McKibben tweeted about such disasters’ rapidly increasing frequency:
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