What coastal flooding in Arlington?

[Anonymous]

The WaPo infographic about about "your county's climate risk" says the risk for coastal flooding is high in Arlington. What's that about? Flooding from the Potomac? Or am I not understanding what coastal flooding means?

[Anonymous]

The flooding we've experienced in Arlington is from extremely heavy rainfall, i.e., flash flooding, rather than an overflowing body of water. I don't know why WaPo would call it costal flooding.

[Anonymous]

This is OP. Every time we get a lot of rain, Alexa warns me about coastal flooding. I always think she's warning me about something that's happening really far away, along an actual coast. But it seems like the weather folks think we are on a coast?

[Anonymous]

Do you remember the flash flooding of 2019, I imagine that is the risk but maybe even worse some day. There are a lot of creeks and streams around that empty into the Potomac. Perhaps because the Potomac feeds into the Chesapeake Bay it’s being called “coastal” flooding even though that seems like a misnomer.

During the flash flooding in 2019 I drive past 4 mile run near the Shirlington dog park (after the rain let up) and the water looked like a high raging river. I had never seen it like that before and that was with a relatively short burst of a lot of rain. I can’t imagine if we had a huge storm hover over us.

And think of all the neighborhoods with “run” in the name: Donaldson Run, Spout Run, etc. Those are all named after water ways connecting to the Potomac. Plus we keep paving things and are now trying to do huge storm water management projects.

I’m fortunate because I’m in the middle of a sloped street so water tends to roll past (and we’ve done a lot of French drainage work). We did not get any indoor flooding in 2019, but watching what happened to NC has me getting flood insurance quotes just in case.

[Anonymous]

I'd consider it similar to the flooding that western NC experienced recently. It's caused by heavy rain.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Do you remember the flash flooding of 2019, I imagine that is the risk but maybe even worse some day. There are a lot of creeks and streams around that empty into the Potomac. Perhaps because the Potomac feeds into the Chesapeake Bay it’s being called “coastal” flooding even though that seems like a misnomer.

During the flash flooding in 2019 I drive past 4 mile run near the Shirlington dog park (after the rain let up) and the water looked like a high raging river. I had never seen it like that before and that was with a relatively short burst of a lot of rain. I can’t imagine if we had a huge storm hover over us.

And think of all the neighborhoods with “run” in the name: Donaldson Run, Spout Run, etc. Those are all named after water ways connecting to the Potomac. Plus we keep paving things and are now trying to do huge storm water management projects.

I’m fortunate because I’m in the middle of a sloped street so water tends to roll past (and we’ve done a lot of French drainage work). We did not get any indoor flooding in 2019, but watching what happened to NC has me getting flood insurance quotes just in case.

Westover and Cherrydale/Waverly Hills had some of the worst flooding.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This is OP. Every time we get a lot of rain, Alexa warns me about coastal flooding. I always think she's warning me about something that's happening really far away, along an actual coast. But it seems like the weather folks think we are on a coast?

It means if you drive near bodies of water in your area. We do get "coastal flooding" along the Potomac.

[Anonymous]

We are close enough to the mouth of the Potomac that water levels are influenced by tides/storm surges from the Chesapeake Bay/Atlantic Ocean. So sometimes the flooding is from rain in the Potomac River basin, sometimes it is higher water levels from the coast.

[Anonymous]

We are close enough to the mouth of the Potomac that water levels are influenced by tides/storm surges from the Chesapeake Bay/Atlantic Ocean. So sometimes the flooding is from rain in the Potomac River basin, sometimes it is higher water levels from the coast.

This. There is a reason the area near the Jefferson Memorial is called the tidal basin. The tides do impact the DC area because it is a tidal area. Low and influenced by ocean.

[Anonymous]

OP -i suggest you google Arlington Alexandria flooding before you post here again