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Title: “Prophetic vision, vivid imagination”: The 1927 Mississippi River flood

Abstract

The 1927 flood in the Lower Mississippi River was the most destructive flood in American history, inundating more than 70,000 km2 of land, resulting in approximately 500 fatalities and leaving more than 700,000 people homeless. Despite the prominence of the 1927 flood, details on the flood, and the storms that produced the flood, are sparse. We examine the hydrometeorology and hydroclimatology of the 1927 flood in the Lower Mississippi River through downscaling simulations of the storms that were responsible for catastrophic flooding and through empirical analyses of rainfall and streamflow records. We use Twentieth Century Reanalysis fields as boundary conditions and initial conditions for downscaling simulations using the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model. We place the hydrometeorological analyses of the 1927 storms in a hydroclimatological context through analyses of the Twentieth Century Reanalysis fields. Analyses are designed to assess the physical processes that control the upper tail of flooding in the Lower Mississippi River. We compare the 1927 flood in the Lower Mississippi River to floods in 1937 and 2011 that represent the most extreme flooding in the Lower Mississippi River.

Authors:
 [1];  [1]
  1. Princeton Univ., NJ (United States). Dept. of Civil and Environmental Engineering
Publication Date:
Research Org.:
Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States). Oak Ridge Leadership Computing Facility (OLCF)
Sponsoring Org.:
USDOE Office of Science (SC); National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA); National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)
OSTI Identifier:
1565405
Grant/Contract Number:  
NNX10AI46G
Resource Type:
Journal Article: Accepted Manuscript
Journal Name:
Water Resources Research
Additional Journal Information:
Journal Volume: 51; Journal Issue: 12; Journal ID: ISSN 0043-1397
Publisher:
American Geophysical Union (AGU)
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English
Subject:
54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES; Environmental Sciences & Ecology; Marine & Freshwater Biology; Water Resources; flood; hydroclimatology; Mississippi River; hydrometeorology

Citation Formats

Smith, James A., and Baeck, Mary Lynn. “Prophetic vision, vivid imagination”: The 1927 Mississippi River flood. United States: N. p., 2015. Web. doi:10.1002/2015wr017927.
Smith, James A., & Baeck, Mary Lynn. “Prophetic vision, vivid imagination”: The 1927 Mississippi River flood. United States. https://doi.org/10.1002/2015wr017927
Smith, James A., and Baeck, Mary Lynn. 2015. "“Prophetic vision, vivid imagination”: The 1927 Mississippi River flood". United States. https://doi.org/10.1002/2015wr017927. https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/1565405.
@article{osti_1565405,
title = {“Prophetic vision, vivid imagination”: The 1927 Mississippi River flood},
author = {Smith, James A. and Baeck, Mary Lynn},
abstractNote = {The 1927 flood in the Lower Mississippi River was the most destructive flood in American history, inundating more than 70,000 km2 of land, resulting in approximately 500 fatalities and leaving more than 700,000 people homeless. Despite the prominence of the 1927 flood, details on the flood, and the storms that produced the flood, are sparse. We examine the hydrometeorology and hydroclimatology of the 1927 flood in the Lower Mississippi River through downscaling simulations of the storms that were responsible for catastrophic flooding and through empirical analyses of rainfall and streamflow records. We use Twentieth Century Reanalysis fields as boundary conditions and initial conditions for downscaling simulations using the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model. We place the hydrometeorological analyses of the 1927 storms in a hydroclimatological context through analyses of the Twentieth Century Reanalysis fields. Analyses are designed to assess the physical processes that control the upper tail of flooding in the Lower Mississippi River. We compare the 1927 flood in the Lower Mississippi River to floods in 1937 and 2011 that represent the most extreme flooding in the Lower Mississippi River.},
doi = {10.1002/2015wr017927},
url = {https://www.osti.gov/biblio/1565405}, journal = {Water Resources Research},
issn = {0043-1397},
number = 12,
volume = 51,
place = {United States},
year = {Mon Nov 30 00:00:00 EST 2015},
month = {Mon Nov 30 00:00:00 EST 2015}
}

Journal Article:
Free Publicly Available Full Text
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Citation Metrics:
Cited by: 25 works
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Figures / Tables:

Figure 1 Figure 1: Mississippi River map, showing locations of major tributary rivers, stream gaging stations, and the locations of two major crevasses during the 1927 flood. The location of the White River stream gaging station is shown by the red circle labeled 1. The Petit Jean gaging station is shown bymore » the red circle labeled 2. Green dots indicate locations of stream gaging stations referenced in the text.« less

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Works referenced in this record:

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Works referencing / citing this record:

Strange Floods: The Upper Tail of Flood Peaks in the United States
journal, September 2018


Atmospheric Circulation Patterns Associated with Extreme United States Floods Identified via Machine Learning
journal, May 2019


On the flood peak distributions over China
journal, January 2019