1 / 25

Catastrophic Floods in Texas Raymond Slade, Jr., Professional Hydrologist

Catastrophic Floods in Texas Raymond Slade, Jr., Professional Hydrologist. June 1935. Texas topography and principal sources of moisture. Record Rainfall Rates for Various Durations – The World and Texas. Major Storms along the Balcones Escarpment. Major storms along the Balcones Escarpment.

dewei
Download Presentation

Catastrophic Floods in Texas Raymond Slade, Jr., Professional Hydrologist

An Image/Link below is provided (as is) to download presentation Download Policy: Content on the Website is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use and may not be sold / licensed / shared on other websites without getting consent from its author. Content is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use only. Download presentation by click this link. While downloading, if for some reason you are not able to download a presentation, the publisher may have deleted the file from their server. During download, if you can't get a presentation, the file might be deleted by the publisher.

E N D

Presentation Transcript

  1. Catastrophic Floods in TexasRaymond Slade, Jr., Professional Hydrologist June 1935

  2. Texas topography and principal sources of moisture

  3. Record Rainfall Rates for Various Durations – The World and Texas

  4. Major Storms along the Balcones Escarpment Major storms along the Balcones Escarpment

  5. Ratio of maximum known peak discharges to 100-year peak 1.3 3.3 1.8 2.9 4 1.6 1.5 2.3 2.1 3.5

  6. Flood Stages - Maximum Peak Stages (feet) 24-51 14-42 22-42 17-38 23-60 12-37 13-33 21-42 12-23 30-53 9-39 13-47 7-38 13-40 20-42 17-35 31-50 12-20 20-56 18-42 35-64

  7. Big floods occur almost every year in Texas

  8. House boat(?) going over Austin Dam (Tom Miller) in 1935

  9. Colorado River At Wharton, 1935

  10. Colorado River at Austin, 1936

  11. Colorado River at Wharton 1938

  12. Austin, May 24-25,1981- Shoal Creek Floodplain

  13. After 1981 Austin flood…

  14. Houston, 1994

  15. Tropical Storm Allison, June 2001 23 deaths $5 billion damages

  16. Canyon Dam Spillway, July 9, 2002

  17. Big floods can be clustered in time

  18. Big floods in 1998 and 2002 deemed unprecedented and blamed on urbanization by some flood victims Flood history often ignored

  19. Real-time flood data http://waterdata.usgs.gov/tx/nwis/rt

  20. http://floodsafety.com/media/ffa/movieplayer.htm/trailer.htm

  21. http://pubs.usgs.gov/of/2003/ofr03-193/

  22. Flood Plain ProblemsWhy do people and property flood Texas leads Nation in annual deaths and damages 100-year flood plain – mapped on most streams • Some floods exceed 100-year peak • Some flood plains incorrect - lack of data • Flood plain encroachment increases after last big flood • Some development allowed in flood plains • Urbanization & land cover change increases flood plain • Dams provide false security • Fallible early warning flood prediction models • Low flood plains adopted by some communities

  23. Example of low flood plain Contr New Braunfels adopted 28,000 ft3/s as 100-year flood peak in 1984 Year and associated flood peak in ft3/s

More Related