Nicholas DeNobrega Lab 5

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Geology 116, Fall 2023 Name Nicholas DeNobrega Lab 5: The Binghamton Storms and Floods of 2006 and 2011 In June 2006 and September 2011, Binghamton suffered from the two largest floods of record. While flood records are incomplete prior to the establishment in 1913 of a river gauging station on the Susquehanna River at Conklin, NY, just upstream of Binghamton, other historical records indicate that these two floods were the highest river levels recorded at the city of Binghamton, surpassing the previous record flood of 1936 as well as other historical floods in 1865 and 1846. The 2006 and 2011 floods were caused by major storms, but different styles of storm. The first part of this exercise asks you to gather data on the magnitude and nature of the storm events. The second part of the lab asks you to evaluate the differences in flood size in the Binghamton area by looking at maps of the flooded areas. The final part of the lab asks you to compare the two large main-river floods, consider why they were different (and similar), and consider why intense thunderstorms in November 2016 didn’t produce the same kind of flooding. Part 1. Learning about major storms The National Weather Service Binghamton weather station website is a good hunting ground for information about past weather events. Some of their descriptions of past severe weather events are listed under flooding; this is true of all three events you’ll look at. These events are also summarized on a website from a joint Cornell-NWS project (look at the Local Case Studies for the year in question). These two sources will provide you with sufficient information to answer the following questions. In addition, if you’re willing to read a scientific paper on the two big floods, you’ll find an article by Gitro and others in the Lab section of the course Brightspace page. The abstract (summary) of the paper is included in this “handout”. June 2006 storm 1. What was the nature of the storm in June 2006 that produced major flooding in the Binghamton area? What kind of front(s) contributed to the rainfall? The storm in June 2006 was caused by a stalled cold front characterized by a low-pressure system centered over the Midwest and high-pressure system centered off the Atlantic Coast south of New Jersey which eventually made its way to Binghamton 2. What was the duration and intensity of the rainfall event? Where was the most intense rainfall? Note this carefully; it is important for considering differences among the storm events. The entire duration of the storm was between June 24th and the 29th, with the heaviest rainfall event occurring from June 27th to the 28th. During this time, 3-5 inches of rainfall fell and it most affected surrounding towns to Binghamton like Montrose and Norwich 3. What were the antecedent conditions, and how did they contribute to the effect of the main storm? The antecedent conditions featured moderately wet soil moisture levels, with early rain on the 26th saturating the soil. In addition to this, heavy rainfall on the 26th and 27th further helped set the stage for flash flooding in Northeast Pennsylvania and the Catskills.

November 2006 storm In November 2006 there was another set of storms that had a different character and result. 4. What was the nature of the November 2006 storm(s)? What kind of front(s) contributed? The nature of the November 2006 storm was very heavy rain and extremely damaging winds. This was caused by a low-pressure system and cold front that tracked from Ohio to central New York which led to unusually high precipitation led and flash floods of small streams. 5. What was the duration and intensity of the rainfall? Where was the most intense rainfall? The storm lasted 2 days(11/16-11/17) and the most intense rainfall was in Central New York and Northeast Pennsylvania. The next big storm to investigate occurred in September 2011 (in fact, during the second week of classes that fall). Back to the National Weather Service and Cornell sites to gather data on this storm. 6. What was the nature of the September 2011 storm? The nature of the September 2011 storm was the remnants of Tropical Storm Lee caused lingering low-pressure systems to funnel moisture north along the east coast. Also, key surface features like a persistent coastal front along the mid-Alantic coast contributed further to this storm. 7. What was the duration and intensity of the rainfall? Where was the most intense rainfall? The rainfall lasted for 24 hours, with an average rainfall of 5-10 inches in areas extending from central Pennsylvania north to central New York. Binghamton itself received 9.02 inches of rain, and a total rainfall of roughly 11 inches was recorded in the most intense areas, central New York and Northern Pennsylvania. One example of this was the upper Susquehanna River Basin in NY and Pennsylvania which was extremely damaged, costing $1 billion dollars. 8. What were the antecedent conditions, and how did they contribute to the effect of the main storm? Moisture from the remnants of Tropical Storm Lee, moisture from Hurricane Katia due it moving northward, and a frontal system that that came from the west and was moving northeast. These conditions contributed to an extreme amount of precipitation that led to the flooding. Part 2. Floods of 2006 and 2011. The two big storms of June 2006 and September 2011 produced widespread regional flooding on the Susquehanna and other rivers, whereas the November 2006 event was characterized by flash flooding of smaller streams. 9. Describe the extent and type of flooding that occurred during the November 2006 storm. Where was the most severe flooding, and how did it correspond to the location(s) of most severe rainfall? The flooding was severe in the areas of extreme rainfall, such as parts of Wilkes- Barre, Pennsylvania, Binghamton, NY, and Lowville, NY. In these areas, rainfall reached at least 3.5 inches, up to a possible 5 inches.

The Susquehanna River Floods of 2006 and 2011. To get a better handle on the extent of flooding that occurred in these two events, and how they compared, you can use the reports from the above-mentioned sites. In addition, the Broome County GIS Website shows the extent of flooding in 2006 and 2011 in the Triple Cities area (see figures on following pages). 10. Describe areas in Johnson City and adjacent areas north and south of the Susquehanna River that were flooded in 2006. Note any major landmarks and/or roads that were underwater . In 2006, it appears that Route 17 W was flooded, as well as E Main Street, and Watson Blvd. One major landmark that was “underwater” was Johnson C ity, however the areas near it were not 11. Were these same areas flooded again in 2011? Were more areas flooded? Were some areas that were flooded in 2006 flooded less severely? Compared to the 2006 flood, the 2011 flood caused the same roads and the village of Johnson City to flood again , in addition to the area surrounding Johnson City. There was more severe flooding in 2011, and the areas to the east and west of the village of Johnson City were equally consumed by the water as the rest of the area. Part 3. Comparison and Conclusions The main floods of 2006 and 2011 were the two biggest floods that the Triple Cities area has experienced in recorded history. What was similar about the storms and the subsequent floods? What was different? Did pre-existing conditions play a similar or different role? How important were the location and amount of highest precipitation during these storms? In conclusion, what conditions led the 2011 flood to be larger? The similarities between the storms and subsequent floods of 2006 and 2011 were the areas they affected. Most notably, they both flooded the Susquehanna River and flooded most of Binghamton and the surrounding areas. The differences in these 2 storms were the nature of the storms and what caused them to occur. In 2006, the storm was mainly from tropical moisture and a cold front, and the 2011 storm was caused by the remnants of Tropical Storm Lee and lingering low- pressure systems associated with it. Also, another difference between these storms were flood prevention methods that were put in place in areas that were severely affected by the 2006 flood. These conditions were put in place with the intent of preventing flood damage in the future. One example of this was the Louders Hospital which was completely revamped after the 2006 flood, and suffered minor to no damage during the 2011 flood because of this. The location and amount of highest precipitation during these storms was very important, as it determined which areas got the most flooded. The high amounts of rainfall from both storms produced large amounts of flooding in roughly the same areas. However, the 2011 flood was larger because the rainfall was a mixture of the leftover rainfall from Hurricane Katia as well as the rainfall from Tropical storm Lee, which together created the largest amount of rainfall in the Binghamton area.

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2006 Flood map, Johnson City/Endwell/Vestal 2011 Flood map, Johnson City/Endwell/Vestal area

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Part 4. Assessing Effect of the Binghamton Floods of 2006 and 2011 on Flood Frequency In the analysis of flood frequency, whether for scientific predictions, flood insurance assessment, or other purposes, one of the more challenging issues is how to deal with extremely large historical floods. The basic question: if a particular flood is significantly larger than any other historical event, should it be considered as part of the data used in computing the potential for future large floods, or should it not be included in the calculation because it is an “outlier”? In this part of the exercise, you’ll examine this question by looking at how much change the inclusion (or not) of the largest historical events would have on predicting the size of the 1% exceedance flood. One of the lingering questions about these two floods is, how rare were they? Should they be incorporated into flood frequency assessments in order to estimate the size of the 100-year flood and floodplain, as required by law? The Federal Emergency Management Agency has been revising floodplain maps of the Binghamton area (as well as other areas all over the US) in light of the recent flood history. They incorporated the 2006 flood directly into their initial calculations and likely will include the 2011 flood as well. As a current resident of the Binghamton area, you may well feel it is worth doing the flood assessment as correctly as possible. On the one hand, you wouldn’t want the flood hazard to be under estimated, as this would lead to a false sense of security. On the other hand, you wouldn’t want the flood hazard to be over estimated, as this would needlessly require some people to purchase (fairly expensive) flood insurance. For this part of the assignment, you will review the implications of including the 2006 and 2011 floods in the flood frequency analyses and decide whether you think including these data points is appropriate. 1. The accompanying graphs show the flood frequency relationships for the gaging station in Conklin (a) excluding and (b) including the 2006 and 2011 floods in the computation. In both cases, estimate the recurrence interval that would be assigned to the 2006 and 2011 floods (follow the example provided for the Vestal gaging station). The peak discharge of the June 2006 flood at Conklin was estimated to have been 78,400 cubic feet per second (cfs); the peak discharge of the Sept 2011 flood was 72,100 cfs. 2. Compute the 100-year flood for each graph. The calculated 100-year flood for the graph including the floods was 72,100 and 65,00 for the graph excluding them 3. Turn in: your graphs to show the recurrence intervals for the Conklin site; a table that compares the 100-year flood computed with and without the 2006 and 2011 floods used in the data set and the recurrence intervals of the 2006 and 2011 floods with and without that floods used in the data set (i.e. from graphs 2 and 3); a short discussion of how different the results are; and whether and why you believe one or the other sets of values is more useful in guiding flood hazard assessment.

Including Floods Peak Discharge(cfs) Recurrence Interval(years) 78,400(2006) 160 years 72,100(2011) 100 years 72,100 100 years Excluding Floods Peak Discharge(cfs) Recurrence Interval(years) 78,400(2006) 500 years 72,100(2011) 200 years 65,000 100 years Discussion: The graphs including the major 2006 and 2011 floods have reoccurrence intervals of roughly 160 and 100 years with peak discharges of 78,400 cfs and 72,100 cfs. In comparison, the graphs excluding the 2006 and 2011 floods have reoccurrence intervals of roughly 500 years for 78,400 cfs and 200 years for 72,100 cfs. I believe the graph excluding the 2006 and 2011 floods is more useful because these floods were rare, and usually will not occur. Because of this, the graph excluding these floods is more realistic and will yield more accurate flood results since they do not include the “outliers” of 2006 and 2011. Example:

Take the value of the peak discharge for the flood (in this case, 116,000 cfs), and draw a horizontal line for that value to where it intersects the best-fit curve (the horizontal blue line in the figure above). Then draw a vertical line down to the x-axis to estimate the exceedance probability (the vertical blue line in the figure above). Recall that the recurrence interval is (1/exceedance probability) x 100. In this case the 2006 event has an estimated return period of around 150 years. The two dashed red lines, by the way, show the confidence limits in the estimate:, worth knowing, but not something you need to estimate for this assignment. Blue: 2006 Flood Red: 2011 Flood

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Conklin, NY, flood frequency plot using all data including 2006 and 2011 floods. Vertical axis is Annual Peak Discharge in cubic feet per second; graph has been stretched and truncated so that scale is similar to second graph below. Red: 2006 Flood Blue: 2011 Flood Black: 100 year flood Conklin, NY, flood-frequency analysis excluding the 2006 and 2011 floods from the analysis. You’ll need to plot where the 2006 flood would show up on this graph and estimate its recurrence interval, following the guidelines from the Vestal example on the previous page.

Nicholas DeNobrega Lab 5

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