Redwood Reader

Well, it only took one visit to the East to see the effects of glomalin destruction during a peak event. Most of the East is underwater after an incredible amount of rain fell over an area from North Carolina to central New York State. Today the Susquahana River will crest at 17 feet above flood stage. Interstates are closed and many local roads are closed and communities stranded.
While the region has excellant drainage carved by Ice Age glaciation, most of the high water events are at least partially from snow runoff. Not this time. It is late June, and a stalled low along the Appalachians has caused warm moist air from the ocean off North Carolina to stream northward along the front duymping heavy rain as it went. There was little or no wind with this storm, just a steady heavy rain for a couple of days.
The land absorbed most of the initial rainfall with forest and pasture doing their work. But once saturation was reached it was clear pastures were flooded while forest only flooded in the low spots. Towns and highways suffered the worst and many are still closed as I write this. Landslides are not usually an issue here but one did take out an Interstate. Without wind, most of the utilities were not interupted and we could watch events develop. It only took several hours for surface runoff to disappear after the rain ceased, at least where I was, but the towns are hurting and the main rivers are still rising. Locals cut big trees for lumber and firewood so the deep rooting large trees are just not present in numbers.
Just before this we had some heat, not like the Northwest but enough to play havoc on family members with Alzheimers and MS. The muggy heat makes it comparable to higher heats with lower humidity in the West. The Supreme Court, after its divided decision on water is now tackling global warming in answer to challenges to state regulatory laws over emissions. We can only say that as long as money drives the decisions the climate will continue to become more hostile.
Wind events seem to becoming more of a problem as well. This is to be expected when the pressure extremes widen. Last winter in Cal we had some winds clocked above the recommended average for shake or shingle roofing. It basically came in the form of extreme gusts during rather routine storm events. Here locals report similar events over the last five years with tornados in an area not known for them for over two hundred years. The signs that global warming are effecting the climate are beginning to reach a chorus.