8/19/2023 0 Comments Old ellicott city flood![]() ![]() Ellicott City is located in a small and high-sloping drainage basin, or catchment, which acted as a funnel. Other principal contributing factors to the flooding were topography and development. Some locations in the area experienced even more rain than Ellicott City, with the National Weather Service reporting up to 10.38 inches. Between Ellicott City and Baltimore strong and slow-moving thunderstorms with just about nowhere to go formed and reformed-almost a textbook example of what meteorologists call training convection. Near record-high levels of atmospheric moisture and a stalled cold front were among the factors that contributed to the quantity of rain that fell. In addition to a flash flood emergency for Ellicott City, a flood warning was issued for locations along the Patapsco River in Anne Arundel, Howard, and Baltimore counties. Such an astonishing amount of rainfall in just about three hours corresponds to a greater than 1,000-year return period event, according to NOAA’s precipitation frequency data set. What would typically have been two month’s worth of rain-about 8 inches-fell mostly in the three hours between 3:30 and 6:30 p.m. (Source: AIR, ESRI Basemaps and the FEMA WebMapping service) Significant RainfallĪs in 2016, last week’s flash flooding followed prodigious amounts of precipitation falling on the area in a short space of time. The 100 and 500-year floodplains in the Ellicott City catchment in blue and red, respectively. Main Street follows the steep valley of the Tiber down to the Patapsco River. It was a mill town said to be built around seven hills through which streams converge on a small river, aptly named the Tiber. Today, Ellicott City is part of the Baltimore metropolitan area, but it originated as a rural community that prospered by harnessing the location’s great potential for water power. Most were associated with the Patapsco River, but according to Preservation Maryland, last week’s event was Ellicott City’s 15 th catastrophic flash flood since 1768. Sadly, such inundation is nothing new for Ellicott City, for it has experienced many major floods in the past. This event hit the headlines, thanks to dramatic video footage and because it is even worse than the major flooding there in July 2016. Late in the afternoon two waves of intense flooding surged down picturesque Main Street up to 8 feet deep, inundating first floors and basements, washing vehicles away, and depositing tons of debris and mud tragically, a life was lost. On May 27 dramatic flash flooding wreaked havoc in the historic center of Ellicott City, 13 miles west of Baltimore in Maryland. ![]()
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