Massive flooding in area but small area in center shows no signs of recent water

We had some massive rainfall a couple days ago, flooding like hasn't been seen in my lifetime in some places but not as severe as what I have witnessed locally in some other storms. It was massive downpours over about 5-6 hours. Lots of closed roads from high water. This comes after a similar event 6-7 weeks ago but that rain was over a few days and less over-all rain, but still similar results, which is odd.

I thought I'd check out how a local drainage basin fared, which catches run-off from about 1 sq mile of paved surface, and was located smack in the middle of where the rain fell. Immediately upon seeing it something was odd, the water level was about 1 meter below the drainage pipes running out of the large basin (with 6-8ft berm surrounding it). The ponds in the basin (which always have water) were full, but the over-flow which is about 10-15x the size of the ponds and well below the drainage pipes, had no water and no sign of water. On top of that the high water mark from 6-7 weeks ago hadn't even been disturbed and all the vegetation in the area looked nice and clean like it had been washed with rain for weeks, not all muddy like after normal floods like this.

This basin has 6 4ft diameter pipes leading into it and 3 pipes leading out. It takes weeks for the water level to drop a few ft below the bottom of the drain pipe exiting the basin after normal floods, and this time, less than 24 hours, the water is already about 1 meter below the lowest drain pipe.

The whole area of the drainage basin looked pretty normal but all the areas that had the high water are covered with mud and look brown, not nice vibrant, clean green.

What is odd is this happened a number of years ago during the last major flood, I checked the basin about 6 hours after the bridges opened and they didn't have much water in them so at the time I did lots of research on the area (google maps, measurements of rain catchment area and making sure there weren't other exits for the water). I was around when the basin was built and remember the expansion of the paved area and have driven by the area after many rain storms and have seen the water up to the point of the exit pipes and how the basin looks for days/weeks afterwards. It's filled with wet-land vegetation (cat-tails, lilly pads, long grasses, etc) and it always gets hammered in big floods, the lilly pads get pushed to one side from the high flow of the inlet water, and they take months to come back, if not the next season. This time, and the flood about 7 years ago, none of this happened and they were the largest rain storms for decades, possibly centuries.

I have no explanation for this and is just another thing that I witness in daily life that doesn't add up and seems like it is an over-look in a "program" or matrix.

Also, there is no way that the rain missed this area, the roads were closed surrounding the place and it was smack in the middle of the rains this time and ~7 years ago.

On another note, there is a large run-off area across from where I used to work and it would fill up after rains of over 1" or so and I'd see ducks and geese for about a week in the area. This area is very similar to the other drainage basin, about 10 miles away. It also didn't have much water in it after the storm 7 years ago and it freaked me out at the time - afterwards I looked closely at the two places and would check them out after rains, so this isn't a case or not observing them often or under different circumstances.


Has anyone else noticed oddities in what is expected in their realities and or weather vs what is happening? We has similar things with snow and melt, with 4-5 ft of snow melting with 2-3" of rain over a few hours but no flooding, which is really odd b/c the ground was completely frozen.

edit: I calculated the collection area and the drainage pond size, using conservative estimates (large ponds, smaller paved area) the drainage ponds should have had 23-46ft of water with the recent rainfall if there was no outlet pipe in them, so there was a massive amount of rain in this short time.

You will need to add a link if you honestly want others to analyze your claims. Without any data how is anyone going to respond to your inquiry?

originally posted by: Metallicus
You will need to add a link if you honestly want others to analyze your claims. Without any data how is anyone going to respond to your inquiry?

Ok, well it isn't a news story, it's a personal observation. If that is the case then close the thread. I guess reporting what we see is no longer accepted and the media is king - while on the other hand all the forum does is bash the media for being fake. Great logic

originally posted by: DigginFoTroof

originally posted by: Metallicus
You will need to add a link if you honestly want others to analyze your claims. Without any data how is anyone going to respond to your inquiry?

Ok, well it isn't a news story, it's a personal observation. If that is the case then close the thread. I guess reporting what we see is no longer accepted and the media is king - while on the other hand all the forum does is bash the media for being fake. Great logic

Notice that this sort of....logic.. has been present in EVERY post where people wonder if reality is hiccuping? It's like Agent Smith is working 40 jobs at once.

Thanks for sharing, have you ever considered that some of the water came up from the earth? What I mean is apart from the rain the source of the stream or river whatever may be your case increased enormously. a reply to: DigginFoTroof

originally posted by: ancientthunder
Thanks for sharing, have you ever considered that some of the water came up from the earth? What I mean is apart from the rain the source of the stream or river whatever may be your case increased enormously. a reply to: DigginFoTroof

I'm not sure I understand your last sentence. Are you saying the "spring head" of the stream/creek/river started putting out more water? I'm not sure how that can happen, and am interested in thoughts.

The rain was extremely heavy and I watched it for a while on an off while it was raining so I think it was coming from the sky.

Your explination would explain to some extent why the drainage basin didn't look like it had rained, but even getting an inch of rain fills them up to the drainage pipe level - and I can't see how it would drop a meter in 12 hours, that would be some very absorbent soil (when it is already saturated - as it is a pond with standing water).

I have a drainage "stream" (and underground pipe) in front of my house that is only wet when raining, this time the 4ft diameter was full and about the same volume of water was coming over the top b/c there was too much water. In another area there was standing water (ft deep) with no stream, just a large run-off area, so I would think it had to come from rain.

I'm jsut baffled by this and was the first time it happened but kind of forgot about it and went on, but to have it happen again after it being so odd the first time really makes it stand out and I need to question what is going on. It's similar to getting a 6" snow storm 2 months before winter (about 3 months before snow usually starts) - which happened near the last large flooding 7 years ago.

I'm not sure I understand your last sentence. Are you saying the "spring head" of the stream/creek/river started putting out more water? I'm not sure how that can happen, and am interested in thoughts.

a reply to: DigginFoTroof
We have never been told openly it can happen, but it most certainly can happen, what makes it happen is pretty much kept quiet. Without going into the how it gives us an idea of where floods can come from.
In simplistic terms, Its like you have a bath and the drain hole normally drains the water away. In this case, we have a surge upwards and it appears to have double the amount of water in a particular location.
Also to consider is we have what some people call sinkholes of all different sizes. Now imagine you have an underground river and along that river at certain points there are sinkholes , some sinkholes are filled up or plugged up with earth top to bottom. Others are not if there is an increase of water surge, then like magic the waters rises through them. bingo

When ever there is an odd flooding In any town....There's usually been a lot of commercial Expansion, building development , new housing complexes , etc ....and these have altered the way the water run off flows,... May not be the case for you, but have there been in the past 7 years any surrounding housing developments lately ?

originally posted by: Metallicus
You will need to add a link if you honestly want others to analyze your claims. Without any data how is anyone going to respond to your inquiry?

And post in the correct forum. No idea what this thread is doing here

originally posted by: Meldionne1
When ever there is an odd flooding In any town....There's usually been a lot of commercial Expansion, building development , new housing complexes , etc ....and these have altered the way the water run off flows,... May not be the case for you, but have there been in the past 7 years any surrounding housing developments lately ?

There is nothing new in this area. The run off basins are designed specifically for the commercial land surrounding them that are all paved (in both places I mentioned). The run off basins were built at the same time as the land was paved and the land surrounding it hasn't changed in the last 100+ years from the aerial pictures I have seen.

originally posted by: ancientthunder

I'm not sure I understand your last sentence. Are you saying the "spring head" of the stream/creek/river started putting out more water? I'm not sure how that can happen, and am interested in thoughts.

a reply to: DigginFoTroof
We have never been told openly it can happen, but it most certainly can happen, what makes it happen is pretty much kept quiet. Without going into the how it gives us an idea of where floods can come from.
In simplistic terms, Its like you have a bath and the drain hole normally drains the water away. In this case, we have a surge upwards and it appears to have double the amount of water in a particular location.
Also to consider is we have what some people call sinkholes of all different sizes. Now imagine you have an underground river and along that river at certain points there are sinkholes , some sinkholes are filled up or plugged up with earth top to bottom. Others are not if there is an increase of water surge, then like magic the waters rises through them. bingo

Well there seem to be A LOT of unexplained sink holes in the area, they seem to be on the news quite often. A recent one tried to eat about 20 cars and the odd thing is that it is also right next to a large drainage basin for a fairly large shopping complex. They say the hole is "unexplainable" but now looking at it after what you have said, I'm wondering if the two are linked in some manner.

I wonder how many of these sink holes that have opened up mysteriously are located close to an unnatural drainage basin or near a drainage pipe leading to/from the basin.

I decided to look at some large commercial lots that have been developed in the last ~20 years vs what was there before. What I noticed is that the new lots (I'm talking about lots that have 4-10 big box stores + 10-30 smaller ones + parking) and all these have large drainage basins with standing water for the most part, some are dry. But there are large commercial or industrial parks in the area as well that are much older w/o and basins and then there are newer small lots (commercial or residential) that have enormous basins compared to catchment area and they are always full of water.

I know a lot of this has to do with how fast water drains/percolates through the ground - as far as how large a basin is needed, but when a few sq miles are paved and it all drains downhill with no basin in between, no natural or run off streams, where the heck does all the water go, where has it been going. It's appearant in the new construction but all the old construction it seems like the water is magically not an issue. I really don't think they built 16-20ft diameter drainage pipes 2-3 miles long to carry water away from the few sq miles of paved catchment area, but from looking at many places on the maps, that seems to be the only explanation for why there aren't floods in these areas.

This topic isn't exactly "sexy" or interesting but there is something odd here and unless you have noticed things like this, or have reason to look and ask, I doubt anyone would ever consider these issues. I think part of the reason there are flooding issues is because they didn't build for run-off the way it should have been done before 20-30 years ago. There was no retention basins that held water for 24-72 hours to allow for slower run-off into the streams, instead it just dumped full speed into them. These large businesses that have paved over the landscapes have cost people billions/trillions in flooding over the years.

a reply to: DigginFoTroof

Tell the city. Could be blockages in the pipes.

a reply to: ancientthunder

While that would account for water level changes, what the OP is saying is that there is *less* water in this area than there should be after a rain. Sorta like filling your glass at the faucet, and a second later, the glass is half full- you didn't dump any out, and there's no leaks in the glass. The water's just... gone.

Only thing I got is a water spout formed over the area and pulled the water out.

a reply to: wylekat

What I got was the drain basin never got water.

originally posted by: OccamsRazor04
a reply to: wylekat

What I got was the drain basin never got water.

That's what I got, too. I'd say there was a crack in the thing, and a cave, but that'd have water draining out at a consistent rate, I'd think.

a reply to: DigginFoTroof

This topic isn't exactly "sexy" or interesting but there is something odd here and unless you have noticed things like this

Closest I can get is watching a water bottle swim uphill yesterday in a fierce rainstorm. The bottle a) was floating where the width of the road slopes up away from us, and b) it's a slight downhill to the woods at the end of the road, which lead directly to a highway (or what passes for one around here). The bottle was going up hill, on an inclined slope.

Yes- I did check the wind. For it to have done that it'd have to been blowing the rain at a 45-60 degree angle. Rain was coming down straight, and nothing was blowing- like our patio umbrella.

I'm ready to grab a ball, and see where it rolls to when it stops being hot and crummy out.

a reply to: DigginFoTroof

I have noticed similar as well. Nothing that I could specifically document as 'proof', but as a general observation saying 'how odd that this area that floods across the road every time we get 10 min of a light rain, appears to barely be wet'

Areas above the direction of the normal flow of the river crossing the road & flooding, but down river where you expect the water to have risen, seems to be slightly above the normal level.

In my area, others noticed it as well, to the extent the local fire dept's checked the river for blockages.

Areas that rarely flood are flooded, areas that flood every-time too many geese land on the lake, dry.

a reply to: DigginFoTroof
I think it could be two things:

1) earth so dry that it won´t absorb the water so most is going directly down into the water table / natural reservoirs refilling

2) underground military complex need to replenish it´s tanks.

originally posted by: verschickter
a reply to: DigginFoTroof
I think it could be two things:

1) earth so dry that it won´t absorb the water so most is going directly down into the water table / natural reservoirs refilling

2) underground military complex need to replenish it´s tanks.

Well it isn't that the earth is dry here. The entire catchment area is one big parking lot, literally, solid cars - about 1 sq mile. When it was built they paved over farm fields and I remember seeing the dump trucks roll out non stop for years which seemed odd b/c I was wondering why they would need to remove dirt. There was another industrial park around here that had a similar amount of dump trucks lined up to exit the construction site, full of dirt, and they were paving farm land there as well, both places were flat for the most part.

I have thought that this place might make a good underground site b/c there are 1,000's of people in and out, cars brought, left, bought, sold, transferred, etc and lots of action going on 24/7 - and it is a subsidiary of a fortune 100 company - among some of other interesting ties/links.

I know the water isn't backed up inside the catchment area, although they built 8-10ft "security berms" around the entire property so you can't see in. I guess it would be possible to have the water diverted once it is under ground, so it looks like it is being taken away by the drainage system (and headed to the basin) but it is diverted underground somewhere else. Problem is that there is no other place around where it could be diverted unless there was something underneath it.