Kevin and Kim Johnson thought they’d found their safe haven in Hamburg, but nine feet of water in their living room and backyard changed all that. In March 2019, the Missouri River flooded and put Kevin and Kim’s paradise under nine feet of water. The flooding was a culmination of several factors—heavy rains, warm temperatures, melting snow and impenetrable frozen ground—each of which was exacerbated by a changing climate. Iowa had just experienced its third wettest winter in over a century. The soils were frozen solid when a bomb cyclone struck the Midwest, dropping two weeks-worth of rain on the region in just a day and a half.
By Katelyn Weisbrod. Inside Climate News. March 1, 2020.
