> Experts and local government officials, as well as local media, are
> saying that this flooding that has been happening in Wisconsin, Iowa,
> Illinois, Missouri, and other places, is a 500 year flood. THIS kind of
> catastrophic flood won't happen for another 500 years (there are also
> what are called 100 year floods, too), and it's happened during OUR
> lifetimes.
>
> Figure that out for me, please, because I'm having a hard time wrapping
> it around my brain.
Giver that the '93 flood was a "100 year flood", yeah. It's had to
imagine that a 500 year flood would occur just over a decade after the
100 year flood.
For one thing, I think their nomenclature sucks. Saying that during any
given year there is 1 percent chance of experiencing another flood like
the '93 flood has a very specific, mathematically defined meaning.
Saying that the flood of '93 was a 100 year flood is a lot less
specific. Likewise, a 0.2% probability is a lot clearer meaning than
calling it a "500 year flood". But even expressing them by their
statistical probability doesn't make it any more conceivable that we can
be experiencing this nasty flooding so soon after the '93 flood.
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