Putting the Nepal flood in perspective: the ancient Missoula floods dwarfed it completely. Victor Baker's 1973 research found peak discharges up to 750-800 million cubic feet per second — roughly 22 million cubic meters per second. That's about 600 times larger than Nepal's estimated 15,000 cubic meters per second peak. The Missoula floods involved dozens of separate massive flows, per O'Connor and Costa.
Missoula floods peaked at 800 million cubic ft/sec, roughly 600 times larger than Nepal flood
Key facts
- Grand Coulee peak discharge estimated at 350 million cubic feet per second
- Spokane Valley below Lake Pend Oreille exceeded 700 million cubic feet per second, roughly double Grand Coulee
- Victor Baker's 1973 hydrology research measured peak discharges up to 750-800 million cubic feet per second (approximately 22 million cubic meters per second)
- The Nepal flood at estimated 15,000 cubic meters per second upstream peak is approximately 600 times smaller than the Missoula floods
- Multiple dozens of separate Missoula flood flows documented at 50-300+ million cubic feet per second each
- Source: O'Connor and Costa, "The World's Largest Floods, Past and Present"
Sources
The Missoula and Bonneville floods-A review of ice-age megafloods in the ...ui.adsabs.harvard.edu
Its total volume was about twice that of a maximum Lake Missoula flood yet its peak discharge was ~1 million m3/s, less than a tenth of the largest Missoula ...
Pleistocene Megaflood Discharge in Grand Coulee, Channeled ...agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com
The largest possible flood through upper Grand Coulee, a Missoula flood which raised glacial Lake Columbia to a stage of 750 m, produced a ...
Missoula floods - Wikipediaen.wikipedia.org
Missoula discharge rate ・ the maximum discharge of 17 × 10 6m 3/s ・ estimated volume of Lake Missoula (2184 km 3). "Pleistocene megaflood discharge in Grand ...
[PDF] THE MISSOULA FLOODpeople.wou.edu
Grand Coulee, Washington, was the largest waterfall in the world during the Missoula Flood. The flood through Grand Coulee was about 260 ft [80 m] deep, and it ...
The timing of Missoula floods: Implications for the age of Grand ...pubs.geoscienceworld.org
Ages from boulders on the floor of Grand Coulee indicate later flooding at ca. 14. Grand Coulee was blocked by rock. The short duration of ...
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