Third of US Faces Floods This Spring

Rains, wet winter, expected El Nino delivering deluge
By Mary Papenfuss,  Newser Staff
Posted Mar 22, 2010 4:54 AM CDT
Third of US Faces Floods This Spring
The city of Halstad, Minn., drowns in flood waters from the Red River yesterday.   (AP Photo/M. Spencer Green)

In the latest climate calamity to cause misery, a third of the US is expected to be hit with flooding this spring. The Midwest, followed by the East Coast, will likely bear the brunt of what could be record flooding, brought by heavy rains last autumn, a wetter-than-usual winter, and a predicted El Nino weather system. "We are looking at potentially historic flooding," said a top official of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

"It's a multi-year problem," said a NOAA forecaster. "We've been in an extreme wet pattern since this fall." Residents in and around Fargo, North Dakota, and Moorhead, Minnesota, are already battling flood waters from the swollen Red River and its tributaries. Flooding is the deadliest weather hazard in the US and claims some 100 lives a year, reports ABC News.
(More flooding stories.)

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