Droughts, Floods, and Hurricanes

The U.S. Geological Survey, in cooperation with Broward County Environmental Planning and Resilience Division, has developed county-scale and local-scale groundwater/surface-water models to study the potential for increased inundation and flooding in eastern Broward County that are due to changes in future climate and sea-level rise. The purpose is to provide information that can be used to help...

The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), in cooperation with the Federal Emergency Management Agency, deployed a temporary monitoring network of storm-surge and barometric pressure sensors at 249 locations along the Puerto Rico, Florida, Georgia, and South Carolina coasts to record the timing, areal extent, and magnitude of hurricane storm tide and coastal flooding generated by Hurricane Irma.

Preventing flood hazards, such as hurricane-induced tidal surge, from becoming human disasters requires an understanding of the relative risks floods pose to specific communities and knowledge of the processes by which flood waters rise, converge, and abate. Historically, hurricane-induced tidal surge has been documented through measurement of high-water marks left on structures or vegetation...

The USGS Caribbean-Florida Water Science Center Strategic Science Plan 2017-2027: A blueprint for USGS contributions to water resource science in Florida, Puerto Rico, and the US Virgin Islands Stamm, J.F., Rodríguez, J.M., Sifuentes, D.F., Sumner, D.M., and Grimsley, K.J. with contributions from Bogeajis, N., Torres-González, S., McBride, W.S., Parks, J., and Decker, J.

Webcams have been installed at several real-time stream-gaging sites. The webcams provide valuable information to the National Weather Service, emergency managers, and area residents to evaluate real-time conditions in river environments during storms. The visual record of flooding and other river events also provides valuable research data for the USGS. Many of these webcam installations are part...

The U.S. Geological Survey provides local and national web-based tools so that policy makers and the public can easily access the information they need to enhance preparedness, response, and resilience.

These pages provide access to water-resources data collected at approximately 1.9 million sites in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, Guam, American Samoa and the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands. Online access to this data is organized around the categories listed at the bottom. The USGS investigates the occurrence, quantity, quality...

This page offers some questions and answers about the hydrology of droughts. This information is taken from the web site of the U.S. Geological Survey Water Science Center in Maryland, Delaware, and Washington, D.C. Some content was modified and adapted to Puerto Rico.Droughts: Droughts: https://www.usgs.gov/special-topic/water-science-school/science/droughts-things-know?qt-science_center_objects...

A drought is a period of drier-than-normal conditions that results in water-related problems. When rainfall is less than normal for several weeks, months, or years, the flow of streams and rivers declines, water levels in lakes and reservoirs fall, and the depth to water in wells increases. If dry weather persists and water-supply problems develop, the dry period can become a drought.

In general, the east-west trending Cordillera Central and Sierra de Cayey mountains form an insular hydrologic divide that separates the island of Puerto Rico into two climatologically distinct regions. The northern two-thirds of the island has a relatively humid climate whereas the southern one-third of the island is semi-arid.