A Flash Flood Warning (SAME code: FFW) is issued when a flash flood is imminent or occurring in the warned area. A flash flood is a sudden, violent flood after a heavy rain, or occasionally after a dam break. Rainfall intensity and duration, topography, soil conditions, and ground cover contribute to flash flooding.
Most flash floods occur when there is a heavy amount of precipitation falling in an area and that water is then channeled through streams or narrow gullies. Flash floods may take minutes or hours to develop. It is possible to experience a flash flood without witnessing any rain. In this case, there would be heavy rain in areas upstream of your location.
Read more about Flash Flood Warning: Flash Flood Alerts
Famous quotes containing the words flash, flood and/or warning:
“They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.”
—William Wordsworth (1770–1850)
“Men hold themselves cheap and vile; and yet a man is a fagot of thunderbolts. All the elements pour through his system: he is the flood of the flood, and fire of the fire; he feels the antipodes and the pole, as drops of his blood: they are the extension of his personality.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“By day thy warning ringing bell to sound its notes,
By night thy silent signal lamps to swing.”
—Walt Whitman (1819–1892)