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Inundation F.A.Q.'s

  • Why are there missing flood categories? - A Flood Category may be excluded from the inundation study area due to lack of elevation data for the given study location.
  • What is a "100-year flood"? - A 100-year flood is a flood that has a 1-percent chance of being equaled or exceeded in any given year. A base flood may also be referred to as a 100-year storm and the area inundated during the base flood is sometimes called the 100-year floodplain.
  • What is a "500-year flood"? - A 500-year flood is a flood that has a 0.2-percent chance of being equaled or exceeded in any given year. A base flood may also be referred to as a 500-year storm and the area inundated during the base flood is sometimes called the 500-year floodplain.
  • What does the "100-year flood" mean? - The term "100-year flood" is misleading. It is not the flood that will occur once every 100 years. Rather, it is the flood elevation that has a 1- percent chance of being equaled or exceeded each year. Thus, the 100-year flood could occur more than once in a relatively short period of time. The 100-year flood, which is the standard used by most Federal and state agencies, is used by the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) as the standard for floodplain management and to determine the need for flood insurance. A structure located within a special flood hazard area shown on an NFIP map has a 26 percent chance of suffering flood damage during the term of a 30-year mortgage.
  • What is a Floodway? - The floodway is one of two main sections that make up the floodplain. Floodways are defined for regulatory purposes. Unlike floodplains, floodways do not reflect a recognizable geologic feature. Floodways are defined as the channel of a river or stream, and the overbank areas adjacent to the channel. The floodway carries the bulk of the floodwater downstream and is usually the area where water velocities and forces are the greatest.
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The National Weather Service prepares its forecasts and other services in collaboration with agencies like the US Geological Survey, US Bureau of Reclamation, US Army Corps of Engineers, Natural Resource Conservation Service, National Park Service, ALERT Users Group, Bureau of Indian Affairs, and many state and local emergency managers across the country. For details, please click here.
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Page last modified: 8-Mar-2017 4:22 PM
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