1929 Houston Floods

[Ptarmigan]

Houston was hit by major floods in April and May of 1929. The April flood was reportedly caused by a low pressure system from the Gulf of Mexico. It dumped heavy rain for hours over Southeast Texas. A large area of Harris County got over 10" of rain in that time. Flooding was widespread. As Houston was recovering from that flood, a low pressure system produces more storms from May 24-31 throughout Texas from Central to Southeast Texas. 10 to 15 inches of rain fell. The May 1929 Flood is up there with the December 1935 Flood.

A blogger at Weather Underground estimates that the 1929 flood had a streamflow of 600000 cfs.

Both the 1929 and the 1940 flood events appear to have had streamflows of over 500000 cfs, more than double the 100 year flow of 225000 cfs. However, It must be noted that using my formula only gave the 1994 flood a flow of ~350000 cfs, about 10000 cfs too low! This could possibly mean that both the 1929 and 1940 floods are underestimated as well. Therefore, it is possible that the streamflow from the 1929 flood could have approached or even exceeded 600000 cfs, making the 1929 flood even more poverful than the Mississippi River above its confluence with the Misourri River during their 1993 and current 2008 floods!!! Apparently, everything's bigger in Texas, including floods...

http://www.wxresearch.com/almanac/houflood.html
http://www.wunderground.com/blog/1900hu ... 8&month=06
http://floodsafety.com/texas/USGSdemo/1950to1925.htm

Think about if we saw a repeat of the 1929 or December 1935 floods today. Houston is more developed and the population is over 2 million. It will make Tropical Storm Allison of 2001 a walk in the park. The damage would be catastrophic and loss of life would be great.