Yellowstone Flood

All park entrances closed.. Homes/roads/bridges washed away..
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=DAp8fnThuNM

https://dailymontanan.com/2022/06/1...tes-gardiner-and-evacuates-part-of-red-lodge/

 

Don’t piss with Mother Nature!

 

Glad I went last year at this time of year. Feel sorry for people stuck or can't go to enjoy time in the park.

 

Big rains or spring melt off?

 

Both. Above average snowpack and lots of rain.

 

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=itiLhF_CN9k

 

Devastating.

The power of water, and nature, really cannot be underestimated.

SPP

 

That’s a fact. I see it a lot in CO on rivers during runoff. People on cheap 3 dollar tubes without life jackets floating down raging rivers. The ignorant underestimation of nature.
Very sad to see this destruction. Stay safe out there everyone.

 

Totally a bummer to see this.

We were scheduled to spend 10 days there and in Grand Tetons at the beginning of August. We had to cancel for other reasons but now I am seeing this I feel lucky things worked out the way they did.

 

I almost drown when I was like 31 in the Guadalupe River and I wasn't even doing anything stupid. The river was high but we were at the state park area where everyone swims. I just got pulled under near a rock and there was a washing machine type churn going on , I got flipped upside down underwater and didn't know which way was up . It was scary as hell.

 

Glad you made it. Those back eddies behind objects can be powerful as hell. I know that’s a scary and hopeless feeling.

 

Snowpack was actually just at or below average all season, actually was on track for lowest snowpack in a long time until mid april. There's just that much rain coupled with late season april/may wet snow feeding runoff

 

Yea I was trying to swim "up" toward the surface but wasn't going anywhere and was so confused. Later I figured out what I thought was "up" was upstream so I was fighting g the current which was a fast losing battle. It was bc I decided to try something different despite what I could "see" (thinking the daylight was the surface) that I got turned around downstream and was able to reach the surface. I didn't think downstream was up because of the big oak trees shading the daylight. From underwater it looked dark.

 

Are you sure? A week or 2 ago northern Wyoming numbers were even higher. I guess if you say "snow pack" I see what your saying. The late snow didn't help.

 

Holy crap that sucks. I've been a river rat many times over and never got into something like that. Closest thing I saw like that was when the tube my cooler was in hit a big rock and since I was tied to it, the water pushed the bottom of the tube and flipped it but I saved that cooler by God.

 

It’s been low for most of the winter. Only snowed twice in February around here. Spring however was very wet and the snowpack got back up to normal. The rain hit almost exactly when the rivers were about to peak

 

Yup I grew up around the water , oceans , rivers etc. I'm from San Antonio so Guadalupe, Comal and Frio we frequented and my grandparents lived on the gulf near Galveston where I spent summers. I'm a strong swimmer. I learned real quick that day none of that shit matters when the river flow does what it wants. I had never been in a situation like that in my life.

 

Flathead hit flood stage a couple days ago after more than 5" of rain inside of 5 days. Local creeks and tributaries caused issues all over the valley.

Expected to go way over flood stage (calling for 16'). Today's warmup into the weekend will melt all that new snow + thunderstorms are in the forecast

Coldest April on record followed up with a shitload of moisture and very few decent days ... it's been rough on the psyche.

 

Where abouts in the Flathead did they receive 5"?

 

I had the opposite luck of you. We just got home Sunday from a week long trip split between visiting a ranch and the park. It blew my mind seeing the devastation on the news only a short time later.

 

here in Columbia Falls rain fell at the rate of 2-3" per hour in some instances ... Weather Underground shows 5" over the past week

 

My wife and I should be heading to Yellowstone today for our 30th anniversary. We were going to be staying in Red Lodge on Sunday then head over the Bear Tooth Pass into the park on Monday.... now I'll be home shopping for Tundra or Jeep parts instead. I hope everyone out that way is safe and can bounce back from this. I'm sure the video's and pictures don't even come close to showing how much damage has occurred.

 

Raised in AZ, I got to witness several 200 year floods and a 400 year one. They all had similar ‘perfect storm’ causes. Heavy early winter rain, that saturated the ground. Then a series of big snow storms that left 5’ to 7’ of snow in the mountains. Followed up by several days of drenching rain and above freezing temperatures every bit seems to have to run off at the same time. Awesome, amazing power. Trailers, bridges, basketballs, and boats all washed down stream. Over the last 15 years or so, it’s gotten pretty famous and white water junkies will come, during the floods, from all over the world to float some of the stretches.

 

snowpack isn't the issue...it's snowmelt. we've had a stupid hot spring so it's melting a lot quicker and the rain just doubled that.