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The total precipitation in the first five months of 2019 was the highest since 1980.
Gabriele Villarini, UI professor of civil and environmental engineering and lead author of the report, says weather phenomena he calls “Midwest Water Hose” events are responsible. With a water hose, he says, there’s a concentrated amount of water affecting a specific location.
“They bring a lot of moisture from the Gulf of Mexico,” Villarini says, “and this moisture that is transported through this narrow region across the plains then becomes precipitation with all of the implications that we’ve been experiencing.”
The total precipitation in the first five months of 2019 was the highest since 1980, and the flooding brought destruction to communities and crops on Iowa’s eastern and western borders. Villarini, who is director of IIHR-Hydroscience & Engineering at the UI, says severe flooding is becoming more frequent, especially in the past 50 to 75 years.