I don’t recall there being massive cyclone storms that deluge and flood a dozen states at a time, but then again I have not watched a lot of Weather Channel over the past two decades, and simply may have missed it. There have been storms. There have been floods. These seem bigger… or is it the hype that is bigger?
I have seen it claimed that these big storms are fueled by Arctic warming. Is that the case? Are these storms significantly different than the storms of the past?
TheFlood of 1993 hit nine states from North Dakota through Illinois, lasted for months, and had pretty much the same origins – lots of snow in the winter, followed by storm after storm across the same area in the spring. The Flood of 1937 was caused by day after day of continuous rain across the Ohio River Valley, and the Flood of 1927 might have been the worst of all.
The question is, does the permanent warming of the Arctic set up the right weather patterns for this to happen year after year, instead of once every 15 years or so.