Spring showers and flooding have some Missourians wondering how this year is shaping up in comparison to the flood year of 1993.
The National Weather Service in Kansas City created this graph comparing precipitation this year to that of the flood year of 1993. (click for larger version – courtesy; National Weather Service)
It’s been more than 20 years since that flood, but the recent string of severe thunderstorms has many people concerned water levels could reach those historic benchmarks again.
Meteorologist Spencer Mell with the National Weather Service in Kansas City compared the summer of 1993’s monthly precipitation with 2015’s totals. Mel said Missouri has had more rain in the months of May and June than it did in 1993.
“1993 was the 22nd wettest May and June on record for Kansas City, where as currently for May and June of this year, we actually already rank sixteenth,” said Mell. “We still have 22 days to go in June, so we’re going to be well up there as far as wettest May and June on record for Kansas City.”
Mell said much of the water in the flood of 1993 came from upstream and a snowpack North of Missouri. He said the upstream conditions haven’t been quite as bad this spring, but the potential for river flooding to get worse will continue if Missouri has a prolonged wet pattern.
“The conditions in 1993 were a little worse in the fact that they did have the higher snowpack in Montana, and then heavier rain falls upstream in Nebraska and Iowa during the spring months,” said Mell. “By the time you got to the summer in July, they received some big time rainfall, so that just kept the flooding going through pretty much the whole season of ’93.”
