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Could Florida's St. Johns River witness flash floods similar to Texas that claimed 120 lives?
Florida braces for its first hurricane as tropical waves emerge. The National Hurricane Center monitors potential storms, with no immediate threats.
Florida is preparing for the season's first hurricane as the “Sunshine State” is witnessing tropical waves.
According to the National Hurricane Center, several tropical waves this week could turn into more significant storms, but no catastrophic activity is predicted for the next week.
Forecasters are particularly monitoring the region where storm Chantal formed earlier this month. Dexter will be the next named storm of the hurricane season.
Meteorologists and scientists are warning about the effects of Trump's severe cuts to scientific organisations.
In late June, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) announced that the Defense Meteorological Satellite Program (DMSP) would “discontinue ingest, processing, and distribution of all DMSP data no later than June 30, 2025, ” Irish Star reported.
NHC monitoring four tropical waves
The National Hurricane Center is keeping an eye on four tropical waves that have the potential to intensify into more severe storms.
Although the tropical Atlantic is predicted to stay calm for the next few days, forecasters caution that there is a less probability of another tropical depression or storm developing from July 15 to 18 in the same area along the southern Atlantic coast, especially the northeast Gulf, which they were tracking closely in early July.
An extended region of comparatively low pressure that travels from east to west throughout the tropics is called a wave. It may result into a development of tropical cyclone.
Could Texas-style flash floods occur on the St. Johns River?
According to Jessie Schaper, a meteorologist and hydrology program manager at the National Weather Service in Melbourne, there is a slim likelihood of flash floods along the St. Johns River, despite the fact that Florida has an abundance of the moist tropical air that led to the rainfall which triggered the devastating floods in Texas, reported Daytona Beach News-Journal.
On being asked about the possibility of flash floods in Florida, Schaper stated, “Absolutely not.”
“We do not have the terrain here that they do in Texas Hill Country, so that type of thing we’d never see on the St. Johns,” she stated. “It is a very slow-moving river. It drains a large area, but it’s essentially flat.”
Over its 310-mile course, the St. Johns River has an extremely modest elevation drop of less than 30 feet. The St. Johns River Water Management District claims that it is one of the “laziest” rivers in the entire world, with an average dip of roughly 1 inch every mile.
The soil, which soaks water very quickly, is another significant distinction between Florida and Texas, according to Schaper.
The Guadalupe River overflowed after heavy rains on July 4th, causing flash floods in Texas that claimed lives of at least 120 people and left several others missing, as per AP. It is worth considering whether the St. Johns River in Florida could experience the same devastating flooding.
