Interview: Dave Call gives context for historic flooding

00;00;00;04 - 00;00;28;13 Stan Sollars Even if you've been out of the country, you know about the severe flooding here in eastern Indiana and also on the white River all the way down through Indianapolis and beyond. So how the heck did all of this happen with us this morning? With perhaps some answers, but we know statistics and other scholarly observations. Is Ball State professor of meteorology and geography Doctor David Call. 00;00;28;14 - 00;00;32;29 Stan Sollars He is a meteorologist, of course. And the doctor, Call welcome this morning. 00;00;33;00 - 00;00;36;23 Dr. Dave Call Thank you for having me. Although it's under unusual circumstances again. 00;00;36;26 - 00;00;56;24 Stan Sollars Yes it is. You know that if doctor calls in our studios or you see the Weather Channel's Jim Cantore someplace, you don't necessarily want to run for the for the shelter, but at least perking one's interest would be appropriate. So, Doctor Call, how did this mess of rainfall happen? 00;00;56;25 - 00;01;16;03 Dr. Dave Call It was. It's not unusual to get these stalled out fronts that interact with soupy air masses in the summer, but this one was particularly wet. The Pacific Ocean off Baja California is really warm right now, and that's just pumping lots of water into the atmosphere. You might have heard about all that big heat down in the south central part of the country. 00;01;16;04 - 00;01;22;09 Dr. Dave Call The moisture is just riding right along that and coming right like a fire hose of water towards central Indiana. 00;01;22;10 - 00;01;40;10 Stan Sollars So the amount of rain that we got here in Muncie, and especially south of Muncie into New Castle, was extraordinary. And how historic is that? And how much rain did we receive here in the eastern part of the state? And we also need to figure in Anderson as well. 00;01;40;16 - 00;02;01;03 Dr. Dave Call We've already had one of our wettest August on record, and we're barely halfway through the month. I mean, the worst of it was in Henry County. We're pretty much everywhere there. Got 10 to 12 inches. But here in Muncie we got around 8 or 9 inches of Randolph County, G ot 9 to 12 inches Madison County, got 7 to 12. These amounts aren't unusual with the storms, but they have them so wide spread over. 00;02;01;03 - 00;02;04;02 Dr. Dave Call Such a big area was really the problem in this case. 00;02;04;02 - 00;02;08;26 Stan Sollars And the rate at which the rain fell was a complicating factor. 00;02;09;03 - 00;02;20;05 Dr. Dave Call Yeah. Most of it came Wednesday, although a fair amount into Thursday, and there's been no real letup. I mean, the water is starting to fall, of course, but, you know, we really need just some dry weather. 00;02;20;08 - 00;02;33;03 Stan Sollars So how was this flood or how is this flood? Because the waters haven't fully receded yet. On a historical scale, we've heard the year 1913 brought up quite a bit. 00;02;33;06 - 00;02;54;21 Dr. Dave Call Yeah, the 1913 flood was was epic. It was unbelievable in nature in this part of the country, the record setting flood, the fact we're comparing this flood to that flood. It's like when we compare a baseball player to Babe Ruth or a basketball player to wilt. That's how major this flood is. Nobody alive in this part of the country has ever seen a flood like this. 00;02;54;22 - 00;03;02;01 Stan Sollars If you could please give us not only the current readings, but also the highest watermark that was observed. 00;03;02;02 - 00;03;22;15 Dr. Dave Call Well, water moves downstream. So in Muncie, we're actually below minor flood level. We're just at action level nine foot. Although if you look at the river, you can still see it's spilling out of its banks a little. We did peak around 18.5ft. Anderson and Noblesville both peaked around 25ft. That's the highest peak on record, although with levees we tend to have higher peaks than we used to have. 00;03;22;16 - 00;03;39;16 Dr. Dave Call So the amount of water was less. Nonetheless, that's major flooding in both those places, and they're still having minor flooding, but the water levels are slowly falling. Is less rain falls from the sky. It's tough to maintain such high water levels for a sustained period, which is a good thing. I guess. 00;03;39;22 - 00;03;45;19 Stan Sollars We would. I think all agree on that one right now. What do we know about Indianapolis flooding right now? 00;03;45;22 - 00;04;02;16 Dr. Dave Call The water levels are dropping there. I think they're at moderate flood. Again, it takes time for the water to work its way downstream. That's one reason we had flooding earlier here. Our peak in flooding in Muncie was on Thursday in Anderson and Friday in Noblesville. Saturday and south of Indy was on Sunday. 00;04;02;19 - 00;04;08;19 Stan Sollars It would seem to make sense that the big drop of rainfall here would move downstream. 00;04;08;23 - 00;04;24;18 Dr. Dave Call Exactly. And the White River watershed is basically Delaware County, most of Randolph and all of Madison. So that whole watershed just got soaked. And that's why we saw such a dramatic response. It wasn't just 1 or 2 storms and 1 or 2 areas, it was entire counties. 00;04;24;19 - 00;04;30;23 Stan Sollars What about the Mississenewa River? Because of course there was some tragedies involved with flooding there. 00;04;30;26 - 00;04;49;04 Dr. Dave Call Thankfully, northern Delaware County and northern Randolph County didn't get quite as much rain. Grant County got plenty of rain. Two and again, not as much rain. We're still talking 5 or 6in of rain, so it turned the Mississenewa into a torrent, but not quite the catastrophic level of flooding we saw off the white River or in Yorktown, off of Buck Creek. 00;04;49;05 - 00;04;54;05 Stan Sollars So when things get back to theoretical normal, at least. 00;04;54;07 - 00;05;15;19 Dr. Dave Call Well, the good news is this week that stationary front's finally going to push far enough south that we're going to get some drier weather that will allow the water to recede a bit this time of year. The sun is still pretty strong, so that'll help also evaporate away the moisture a bit quicker and dry things out. But it'll take it'll take a few weeks for the water to really start to recede fully. 00;05;15;20 - 00;05;30;00 Stan Sollars Many of us who wear glasses and are in air conditioning and walk outside, and we have the we have fog instantly on our glasses, meaning a high dew point temperature. The dew point temperatures have been in the mid to upper 70s, have they not? 00;05;30;01 - 00;05;52;24 Dr. Dave Call Yes, that's been part of the problem with all this rain. It's been very humid near the ground, but it's also been very humid aloft. The amount of rain in the atmosphere is around 1 or 2 standard deviations above average, meaning exceptional amounts of moisture coming off the Pacific. And that's led to some moisture recycling. So it rains and then the sun comes out and evaporates that moisture right back into the sky. 00;05;52;25 - 00;06;00;29 Dr. Dave Call So then it rains again. So we've had a lot of recycling of moisture, but not not in a good area. It just means it keeps falling over the same area. 00;06;01;01 - 00;06;13;04 Stan Sollars And for those of you out there who are learning your meteorological terms, dew point is the temperature at which do forms, and that has been up in the mid to upper 70s. 00;06;13;11 - 00;06;33;21 Dr. Dave Call That's right. When we start to notice, feels humid. When dew points get into the 60s, around 65, it starts to get muggy. And you like the air conditioning 70 and above is when it really gets uncomfortable and the temperature at night does not fall. The dew point often acts as a floor, and the amount of moisture you get increases exponentially with dew point. 00;06;33;21 - 00;06;38;10 Dr. Dave Call So 70 dew point is much more moist than a 65 dew point. 00;06;38;12 - 00;06;46;13 Stan Sollars Yeah, and we even had some dewpoint temperatures in the last couple of weeks at 80, which is just in the absurd category. 00;06;46;15 - 00;06;48;06 Dr. Dave Call Yes I agree. 00;06;48;09 - 00;06;53;10 Stan Sollars Do we know when the dew points going to drop down to more comfortable regions? 00;06;53;10 - 00;07;09;15 Dr. Dave Call It'll start dropping as we get into fall. Some of the moisture in the air gets contributed from plants, be the crops or trees or other plants, as well as the water that's on the ground. All these standing water we have. So it will gradually start to drop as we get into September. 00;07;09;15 - 00;07;11;01 Stan Sollars We have to wait that long. 00;07;11;08 - 00;07;16;14 Dr. Dave Call Well, hopefully we can get some cooler, drier Canadian air in before then. That'll help a lot. 00;07;16;15 - 00;07;29;19 Stan Sollars Okay. Very good. What is the reason for all of this right now? You explain the mechanics of it coming from the Pacific, but is this tying in with the global warming scenario? 00;07;29;22 - 00;07;52;03 Dr. Dave Call Well, I mean, we're coming into a pretty strong El Nino, and that's what, warming of waters off Peru. But of course, if the water is off Peru or warmer, that's going to have effects that drift up towards Central America and Mexico. So that's probably contributing. Also, it's been a very warm month across the planet, and when we have warm air, we have more water exist as vapor. 00;07;52;03 - 00;07;58;09 Dr. Dave Call That's why your skin gets dry in the winter. It's cold and there's just not much water vapor. But of course in the summer it's much warmer. 00;07;58;10 - 00;08;10;14 Stan Sollars Well, Doctor David Call of Ball State University, a meteorologist and also a professor of meteorology and geography. Thank you very much for coming in this morning. So there is still hope to get out of all of this. 00;08;10;21 - 00;08;17;12 Dr. Dave Call Yes. This week's forecast looks much better. We finally can probably open the windows again and temperatures will be getting much cooler at night.