Comment Death Valley National Park was closed on Saturday after exceptional rainfall hit the park on Friday, causing flash flooding that stranded about 1,000 visitors and park staff. The park received 1.46 inches of precipitation in the Furnace Creek area — just shy of the previous calendar day record of 1.47 inches, set on April 15, 1988. That’s about three-quarters of what the area typically receives on an average year, 1.94 inches and is the largest amount ever recorded for August. The lowest, driest, and hottest location in the United States, Death Valley averages just 0.11 inches of rain in August. As of Saturday morning, “everything is fine,” said Nikki Jones, a server assistant at a restaurant at the park’s Ranch Inn, who also lives there and posted a video of the flooding from her colleague on Twitter. Jones told The Washington Post that floodwaters had receded Friday afternoon, but minor debris remained on the roads. “CalTrans did an amazing job getting it cleaned up as quickly as possible,” she told The Post in a tweet. “I drove the streets today.” Jones said some people have been stranded at the Inn at the Oasis due to trapped cars, “but people can get out of the park today.” “Flood waters pushed trash cans into parked cars, causing the cars to crash into each other,” the National Park Service said in a statement Friday. “In addition, many facilities are flooded, including hotel rooms and business offices. The NPS did not immediately respond to The Washington Post’s request for comment Saturday morning. The torrent was triggered by the Southwest Monsoon, which develops every summer as the prevailing winds shift from the west to the south, sending a wave of moisture northward. This moisture can fuel heavy rainfall that floods the parched desert landscape. Because there is little soil to absorb the rains, any measurable rains can cause flooding in low-lying areas, and heavier rains can collect in normally dry creeks, causing flash floods. This year’s southwest monsoon was particularly strong — which helped alleviate drought conditions in the region, but also led to several significant floods. Severe flooding has recently hit areas around Las Vegas and Phoenix. Las Vegas floods pour water into casinos The flooding in Death Valley also comes amid a series of extreme rainfall events in the Lower 48 states. During the week spanning late July and early August, three 1-in-1,000-year rainfall events occurred – flooding St. Louis, eastern Kentucky, and southeastern Illinois. Earlier this summer, Yellowstone National Park also flooded. How two 1 in 1,000 year rainfall events hit the US in two days Death Valley holds the record for the hottest temperature ever recorded on Earth, as well as several runners-up. Officially, Death Valley reached 134 degrees on July 10, 1913, but some climatologists questioned the legitimacy of that reading. The next highest temperature on record, 131 degrees from Kebili, Tunisia, set on July 7, 1931, is also controversial. Last summer and the summer before, Death Valley reached 130 degrees, which may be the highest pair of reliably measured temperatures on Earth, if the 1931 Tunisia and 1913 Death Valley readings are ignored. Death Valley soars to 130 degrees, Earth’s hottest in at least 90 years The downpour flooded the park, trapping vehicles in the debris, according to a video posted on Twitter by Arizona-based storm forecaster John Shirlin. He wrote that roads were blocked by boulders and fallen palm trees and that visitors struggled for six hours to get out of the park. Major flash flooding in Death Valley National Park this morning. About two dozen vehicles trapped in mud and rock debris at the Inn at Death Valley. It took almost 6 hours to get out. #cawx #stormhour pic.twitter.com/3rDFUgY7ws — John Sirlin (@SirlinJohn) August 5, 2022 Earlier this week, flooding hit parts of western Nevada, forcing the closure of some roads leading into the park from Las Vegas. Flooding also hit parts of northern Arizona. Flash floods close roads to Death Valley National Park Shirlin told The Associated Press that Friday’s rain started around 2 a.m. and was “more extreme than anything I’ve seen out there.” “There were at least two dozen cars that crashed and got stuck in there,” he said, adding that he saw washes flowing several feet deep, though he didn’t see anyone injured, and the NPS reported no injuries as of Friday. Last July, rare summer rains also drenched Death Valley, bringing 0.74 inches per day to Furnace Creek about two weeks after the park set the world record for hottest daily average temperature at 118.1 degrees Fahrenheit. Desert rains: Rare summer rains drenched Death Valley and parts of California on Monday Scientists say human-caused climate warming is intensifying extreme rainfall events. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change found some evidence that rainfall from the southwest monsoon has increased since the 1970s.
