Southerners, especially Floridians, are used to heavy rain. The state juts out like a hitchhiker's thumb into the warm, moisture laden air of the Atlantic Ocean and the Gulf of Mexico, a conveyor belt for storms.
https://spacificnewsnation.blogspot.com/2023/04/leaked-pentagon-documents-air-national.html
https://spacificnewsnation.blogspot.com/2023/04/fort-lauderdale-saw-2-feet-of-rain-in.html
Rain falls by the feet during hurricanes and comes down by the inches during afternoon thunderstorms. The rainfall record during Hurricane Ian last fall was 26.95 inches.
Unfazed Florida drivers often push through sheets of rain so thick you can't even see the nose of your car and grouse about out-of-towners driving with their flashers on. This storm, however, was anything but typical.
So what happened in Fort Lauderdale on Wednesday and why?
Frankly, it's complicated. Several factors aligned in just the wrong way. And it left a rainmaker virtually stalled over the city for hours.
While early morning forecasts warned the alignment of weather systems could produce rainfall amounts up to six inches, the storms dumped up to four times that much rain over Broward County.
- Early Wednesday, a slow-moving frontal boundary to the south was lifting very slowly northward.
- Ahead of and alongside the front, winds converged from two different directions, bringing moist air and creating slow moving thunderstorms along the coast and offshore.
- The conflicting weather patterns interacted in a way that can be difficult to anticipate on a local basis.
- Storms continued to build as the warm front crept northward, drenching Broward County with the incredible rainfall totals.
One neighborhood near the airport became an island surrounded by water. A weather service crew on Thursday noted water three feet deep outside a building at a city park.
https://spacificnewsnation.blogspot.com/2023/04/leaked-pentagon-documents-air-national.html
https://spacificnewsnation.blogspot.com/2023/04/fort-lauderdale-saw-2-feet-of-rain-in.html
City officials said Fort Lauderdale's stormwater system was built to handle 3 inches of rain within 24 hours, but more than a foot fell across broad swaths of the city. At the same time, higher than normal tides were pushing water inland along the coast.
Cities across the country are built for similar so-called 24-hour rainfalls and storms such as the estimated 1,000 year storm in Fort Lauderdale aren't even contemplated.
Could climate change play a role?
Simply put – yes.
Temperatures at the surface in the Gulf of Mexico have been warmer than normal for months. And warmer air holds more water: 7.5% more moisture for every 1.8 degree Fahrenheit increase in temperature.
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