The outdoors of the American Southwest has been hit hard with rainfall lately. It even caused Utah to go through flash floods in the beautiful red rocks of Moab. Floods aren’t uncommon in the Southwest. Dry and arid places typically go through seasons where they get most of their rainfall all at once. However, even with that in mind, there has been record rainfall in multiple states.
A video out of Moab, Utah shows exactly what happens when all of that water hits the hard, dry ground. It can’t get absorbed as well, and it just kinda flies over the top of the ground. Leading to flooding and beautiful waterfalls over the red rocks of Moab.
Utah Flash Floods
Even if the water is brownish red, it is awesome to see. Check out the video below and see it for yourself.
Moab is one of the gems of the Southwest. With the red cliff faces and natural arches, it is a place that everyone should try and go see at least once. Arches National Park is home to 2,000 sandstone arches, many formed through flash floods like what we see in the video above. These Utah flash floods are a lot like images that we’ve seen from states like Texas, California, and Nevada.
It was just about a month ago when Death Valley National Park was going through rough flooding. The waters caused a lot of issues for the park and visitors.
Death Valley Flooding
Right at the beginning of August, Death Valley National Park and the surrounding areas were hit with what came out to be multiple years worth of rainfall in just a matter of days. Heck, a matter of hours. The dry, desert area was not up to the task of taking on multiple inches of water. A region that is used to getting 2 inches in an entire year received 4-5 inches in hours. Multiple times within a week.
So, after the floods came through, the damage was immense. The park closed down temporarily while they worked to fix and clear off roads. In videos from the park, there were visitors stranded and trying to dig their own vehicles out of the mounds of earth that had been moved along with the water.
It took two weeks, but the park eventually opened back up.
“Death Valley National Park’s most popular sites will reopen to the public on Saturday, August 20 – just two weeks after a historic flood unleashed massive, record-setting rainfall and caused millions of dollars in damage to roads and facilities. Several park roads remain closed so visitors should plan ahead and not rely on GP,” the park said.
From Utah to California, there has been a lot of flash flooding across the Southwest. Will this be a trend we see continue
