© NOAA2010 National Hydrologic Assessment
One-third of the United States faces the possibility of "historic flooding" in coming weeks, especially the upper Midwest states of North Dakota, South Dakota, Minnesota and Iowa, government forecasters said.
"Once again we are delivering an urgent message to get ready," John Hayes, director of the National Weather Service, said in a conference call yesterday. "The flood risk is above-average over one-third of the country."
The flood potential is driven in part by El Nino, a warming in the Pacific Ocean, which steered storms that have left the ground saturated from record rains and heavy snows. The area designated for above-average risk stretches from New Mexico to Maine, federal
maps show.
"We are looking at potentially historic flooding in some parts of the country this spring," Jane Lubchenco, administrator for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, said in the conference call.
Many areas of the eastern U.S. have received twice the normal amount of rain in the past three months, said Tom Graziano, a weather service hydrologist.
Comment: The growing problem of trashing the world's oceans with toxic rubbish is clearly defined in the following article:
The world's rubbish dump: a garbage pit that stretches from Hawaii to Japan
The world's rubbish dump: a garbage pit that stretches from Hawaii to Japan
Plastic is believed to constitute 90 per cent of all rubbish floating in the oceans. The UN Environment Programme estimated in 2006 that every square mile of ocean contains 46,000 pieces of floating plastic.
Marcus Eriksen, a research director of the US-based Algalita Marine Research Foundation, which Mr Moore founded, said yesterday: Dr Eriksen said: Additional articles about the ocean being the 'Biggest Dump in the World':
What is the Great Pacific Ocean Garbage Patch?
Pacific Ocean garbage patch worries researchers
Plastic trash vortex menaces Pacific sealife: study
Huge Garbage Patch Found in Atlantic Too