Wyoming Prepares For Spring Floods After Record Snowy Winter

WOW did the West get a lot of snow this winter?

That's a good thing, but with that good thing comes a danger.

As temperatures warm and the snow melts some regional flooding is going to happen.

This is all perfectly natural.

But humans have a habit of building in places that Mother Nature uses now and then.

From Lincoln County Emergency Management

Lincoln County Emergency Management is encouraging county residents to prepare for the potential of minor flooding throughout the county as snowmelt begins. Below-average temperatures have delayed snowmelt, leading to increasingly above-average snowpack for this time of year.

That notice, from Lincoln County, is typical for many counties around Wyoming.

If you live near mountain areas you have been seeing snowpack well above average.

Just think for a moment about where all of that is going.

In most cases, you can look at the landscape and see where flood waters overflowed to in the past.

Your area, no matter where you live in the state, has local officials that are monitoring the snowpack and temperatures. Find their websites and keep tabs on what they are posting

Now is a good time to move anything out of the way that can be moved, like vehicles and farm equipment.

This is also a good time to plan where you might want to go, an escape route, should heavy flood waters come your way.

The key here is taking just a little bit of time to plan ahead.

Flood in some areas around this region has always happened. They are just rare.  Sometimes events like these don't happen for several generations.

Nature has always flooded out the lowlands after a hard winter. This is nothing new. It's our fault for building where those flood waters go.