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Common Dreams reports
A Maryland city was devastated [May 27] after 6-inches of heavy rain caused a downtown flash flood. Major damage is reported and many cars have been swept away.
Ellicott City was still recovering from a flash flood two years ago that killed two and forced the historic city to rebuild much of its Main Street. Residents said Sunday's flood seemed even worse than the storm in July 2016--which was called an extremely rare "one-in-1,000 year event", and cost the city tens of millions of dollars in damages.
Additional information at:
The Baltimore Sun
The Washington Post
USAToday
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Second "1,000-Year" Flood in Two Years Slams Into Historic Maryland City
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* m2 stares at the monitor... it looks like a hamburger...
m2 - that's a bad sign
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 29 2018, @07:11AM (14 children)
East of Atlanta, there is a rainstorm nearly every day. You can track it back to Atlanta, where the urban heat island effect disturbs the weather.
So, did something upwind of that Maryland city change in the past 1000 years? I'm betting it did.
Not that a couple occurrences mean the "1000 year" forecast is wrong of course! The next event might be 4321 years away. These events don't go on a perfect 1000-year cycle like clockwork.
On the other hand, "1000 year" may have been nonsense from the start.
(Score: 3, Informative) by c0lo on Tuesday May 29 2018, @08:01AM (12 children)
"One in X years" is conveying the statistical "reality" of "the chance of one such event in any given year is 1/X".
So, "1 in 1000 years" should just tell you "the probability that we derived from our model** of such an event to happen in any given year is 0.1%".
This is actually used by the insurance companies - they seems pretty good to make money from such a "non-sense", so maybe, just maybe, there's actually some sense into it?
---
** yes, of course, the derived chances have the same credibility as the model they used to derived it from.
Somehow, I don't expect the insurance companies to share this model with the rest of us.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 0, Troll) by khallow on Tuesday May 29 2018, @03:26PM (6 children)
Are you going to continue to try to snow us with mathematical non sequiturs or are you going to admit that these estimates can sometimes be in error?
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Tuesday May 29 2018, @03:36PM (3 children)
My post @Tuesday May 29, @08:01AM
Yours @Tuesday May 29, @03:26PM
This thread is done, happy now?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 0, Redundant) by khallow on Tuesday May 29 2018, @03:55PM (2 children)
I think there's an alternate scenario here. The 1 in 1000 estimate was bullshit, provided as political cover for the leaders of the town in question (and perhaps a number of state-level officials as well). Having this extreme event happen again so soon (and being able to easily visualize much worse flooding events like stalled hurricanes that are likely to happen inside of a thousand years), indicates to me that the original statement was likely in error - and probably deliberately so.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Tuesday May 29 2018, @04:21PM (1 child)
someone found some details [soylentnews.org], you may want to check.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday May 30 2018, @01:18AM
(Score: 3, Informative) by aristarchus on Tuesday May 29 2018, @09:38PM (1 child)
It's statistics, khallow! Are you innumerate?
This is NOT about Anthropogenic Global Warming! Just because it was snowing in Maryland in May does not mean that the overall average global temperatures are not rising? And just because you have two once-in-a-thousand-year floods back to back does not mean that they were not both once-in-a-thousand-year events. Please, khallow, argue in good faith, and do not go to the dark side of Runaway.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday May 30 2018, @02:34AM
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 29 2018, @03:31PM (3 children)
I doubt they are making money by using the "binomial" (actually "geometric") distribution (see my other post above). At a minimum I would expect them to include info about basic stuff like how if an area just flooded it will be more likely to flood again for some period of time since the groundwater has been "recharged", etc.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Tuesday May 29 2018, @03:40PM (2 children)
Likely they are using more refined models. The thingy with binomial distribution on Wiki was the only model I could publicly find.
I'll appreciate if someone could link to more relevant papers.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 29 2018, @04:10PM (1 child)
See here for a start:
https://soylentnews.org/comments.pl?noupdate=1&sid=25836&commentsort=0&mode=threadtos&threshold=-1&highlightthresh=-1&page=1&cid=685690#commentwrap [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Tuesday May 29 2018, @04:17PM
Sincere thanks.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Tuesday May 29 2018, @06:38PM
It's an estimate of the probability based on that data available at the time it was calculated. It's also highly rounded. You don't see reports of "it's a 1 in 997 year flood".
The numbers aren't updated as frequently as they should be, but even if they were you shouldn't take them that seriously...they aren't intended to be taken that seriously. They are *estimates*.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 2) by MostCynical on Tuesday May 29 2018, @08:52AM
"Rainstorm" is not the same as a "1 in 1000 year flood event".
Something that happens every other day
VS
Something that is likely to happen, on average, once in a thousand years.
Insurance companies are very good at this.
Also, "1-in-a-1000" events *could* happen several times in a week, and *still* be 1-in-a-thousand events (although actuaries *do* review their tables, and if something becomes, or is assessed to be, more likely, your premiums will go up.)
"I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex