National Weather Service

Flood Weather 1937 United States Weather Bureau (National Weather Service)

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• published: 16 Jun 2015
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more at http://scitech.quickfound.net/weather_news_and_links.html Descriptions of record setting floods, and an overview of flood work done by the Weather Bureau, United States Department of Agriculture. Meteorology playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL2A2CCF5FEFCA2F78 Public domain film from the US National Archives, slightly cropped to remove uneven edges, with the aspect ratio corrected, and mild video noise reduction applied. The soundtrack was also processed with volume normalization, noise reduction, clipping reduction, and/or equalization (the resulting sound, though not perfect, is far less noisy than the original). http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ohio_River_flood_of_1937 The Ohio River flood of 1937 took place in late January and February 1937. With damage stretching from Pittsburgh to Cairo, Illinois, one million people were left homeless, with 385 dead and property losses reaching $500 million ($8 billion in 2012 dollars). Federal and state resources were strained to aid recovery, as the disaster occurred during the depths of the Great Depression and a few years after the Dust Bowl... Event timeline - January 5: Water levels began to rise - January 10–18: Numerous flood warnings were issued across much of the region. - January 13–24: Near record rainfalls were recorded. - January 18: Numerous homes were flooded as the Ohio River started to overflow its banks due to the heavy rains. - January 23–24: Martial law was declared in Evansville, Indiana, where the water level was at 54 feet (16 m). - January 26: River gauge levels reached 80 feet (24 m) in Cincinnati, the highest level in the city's history. - January 27: River gauge reached 57 feet (17 m) in the Louisville area, setting a new record. Seventy percent of the city was under water at that time. - February 2: River gauge reached over 60 feet (18 m) in Paducah, Kentucky. - February 5: Water levels fell below the flood stage for the first time in nearly three weeks in several regions... Ohio Six to 12 inches (300 mm) of rain fell in Ohio during January 13–25, 1937, totals never before or since equaled over such a large area of Ohio. January 1937 remains as the wettest month ever recorded in Cincinnati. One hundred thousand people in Cincinnati were left homeless, as the flood affected the city from January 18 to February 5... Indiana The river rose to a record 53.74 feet (16.38 m), which was 19 feet (5.8 m) above flood stage, and sent water over the six-month-old riverfront plaza in Evansville. The city and state declared martial law on January 24... Kentucky Several businesses in the Louisville area were devastated, especially the famed Rose Island amusement park (on the Indiana side of the river near Charlestown), which never rebuilt. As a result of the flood, newer development in Louisville was directed to the east out of the flood plain. The east side has benefited by a long-term concentration of wealth among residents and businesses which located away from the older central and western areas of the city... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Weather_Service The National Weather Service (NWS) is an agency of the United States government tasked with providing weather forecasts, public warnings, and other weather-related products to organizations and the public for the purposes of protection, safety, and general information. It is a part of the Department of Commerce's National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and is headquartered in Silver Spring, Maryland, just outside of Washington, D.C. The agency was known as the United States Weather Bureau from 1890 to 1970, when it adopted its current name... History In 1870, the Weather Bureau of the United States was established through a joint resolution of Congress signed by President Ulysses S. Grant with a mission to "provide for taking meteorological observations at the military stations in the interior of the continent and at other points in the States and Territories...and for giving notice on the northern (Great) Lakes and on the seacoast by magnetic telegraph and marine signals, of the approach and force of storms." The agency was placed under the Secretary of War as Congress felt "military discipline would probably secure the greatest promptness, regularity, and accuracy in the required observations." Within the Department of War, it was assigned to the U.S. Army Signal Corps under Brigadier General Albert J. Myer. General Myer gave the National Weather Service its first name: The Division of Telegrams and Reports for the Benefit of Commerce. The agency first became a civilian enterprise in 1890, when it became part of the Department of Agriculture; it would later be moved to the Department of Commerce in 1940...