Spring Flooding in NH
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It's true that Spring comes slowly to New England, but this year could well be the slowest and the messiest in awhile. The reasons? A record snowpack and ice jams in rivers. Hi. I'm Dave Thurlow and this is The Weather Notebook. As correspondent Rebecca Brown reports, observers in Northern New Hampshire are worried that the conditions may be ripe for flooding.

I'm in snow up to my knees- on the bank of the Ammonoosuc River in northern New Hampshire. This year there's a a record snow pack in Northern New England and it has some people worried about ice jams and flooding, especially where there's nearby development. Ice Jams block the flow and send water over the river banks and into surrounding land.

A flood could occur here in this parking lot. Ayear go it was a meadow bordering the river. Now it hosts a supermarket,within the 100-year flood plain. The owners did not include ice jam flooding in their calculations. That's because very few flood plain maps incorporate ice as a variable.

Kate White is with the Cold Regions Research Engineering Lab in Hanover, NH. Ice jams are her specialty. White says new technology can add ice to the equation.

This is good news for town planners and zoning officials, because it gives them a more complete picture of where floods may occur. But, redrawing flood plain maps is very costly. And adding that to a small town's already overbudgened budget will be hard. If this spring is any indication, it might be an investment worth taking.

That's Rebecca Brown of Sugar Hill, New Hampshire. The Weather Notebook is a production of the Mount Washington Observatory. The National Science Foundation provides generous support. Check out more on ice jams at our website, www.weathernotebook.org