Flash Flood Alerts
There are two types of alerts for flash floods which are released by the National Weather Service. One is a Flash flood watch, which means a flash flood could occur in the area. And the other is a Flash Flood Warning, which means a flash flood is occurring or one will occur. A Flash Flood Warning is usually issued when there are strong weather radar echoes for an area that is prone to flash flooding. If a Flash Flood Warning is issued, evacuate quickly and move to higher ground. Do not try to drive through the flooded areas! If your vehicle does stall, get out immediately and move to higher ground!
Some things to be aware of when in a flash flood prone area:
- be aware of any signs of heavy rain
- if you see or hear rapid rising water get to high ground
- do not attempt to cross the flowing water
Flash floods can also occur because of a dam or levee failure, or because of a sudden release of water held by an ice jam.
In addition, some NWS offices have instituted an enhanced Flash Flood Warning, referred to as a Flash Flood Emergency (or by the Albany, NY office as a Flash Flood Warning Emergency), which indicates a severe flooding situation.
Read more about this topic: Flash Flood Warning
Famous quotes containing the words flash, flood and/or alerts:
“The most welcome joke to me is the one that takes the place of a heavy, not altogether innocuous thought, at once a cautionary hint of the finger and a flash of the eye.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)
“Myths, as compared with folk tales, are usually in a special category of seriousness: they are believed to have “really happened,” or to have some exceptional significance in explaining certain features of life, such as ritual. Again, whereas folk tales simply interchange motifs and develop variants, myths show an odd tendency to stick together and build up bigger structures. We have creation myths, fall and flood myths, metamorphose and dying-god myths.”
—Northrop Frye (1912–1991)
“Most literature on the culture of adolescence focuses on peer pressure as a negative force. Warnings about the “wrong crowd” read like tornado alerts in parent manuals. . . . It is a relative term that means different things in different places. In Fort Wayne, for example, the wrong crowd meant hanging out with liberal Democrats. In Connecticut, it meant kids who weren’t planning to get a Ph.D. from Yale.”
—Mary Kay Blakely (20th century)