A flash flood essentially is caused by
an intense rain event
over an impervious area.
That's kind of the bottom line,
and when you look at Southern Utah,
we have red sandstone covering a great deal of the area, and it's almost like a
parking lot. So when you have an intense rain of probably an inch an hour, or more,
that rain falls, it doesn't have anywhere to infiltrate. It runs off on top of the surface.
And Southern Utah has very steep slopes, slot canyons
a lot of relief. And when that amount of rainfall hits the ground
it's spread out in a big area,
well now it's running down into a central location.
It goes into slot canyons, which are very steep, and picks up speed.
And it's very cold, and now you've got this massive source of energy that's
going to sweep you down the canyons.
You can't escape, and it's a very dangerous situation.
The Glen Canyon National Recreation Area has areas of
high potential for flash floods.
It has very steep slopes, it has impervious areas of red sandstone
and other types of rock formations,
and the lack of vegetation. All these combined
make it for a very hazardous area for flash floods.
So as the hydrologist for the National Weather Service what I do is... it's kind
of a different job, I have three different parts.
I do water supply forecasting in wintertime, snow hydrology, how much snow
is in the mountains, how much is going to run off, how much water will we have in the reservoirs.
I also do flash flood science,
warnings, trying to predict the science of flash flooding.
Where are they going to happen, how big will they be,
how long will it take?
All the different aspects of flash flooding, and that's more of a safety
part of my job. We're trying to keep people safe from flash floods,
keep them away from them, and just try and...
Keep people aware of what's going on flash flood wise in Southern Utah mostly.