BYBEE-MALOTT : THE FLOOD OF 1913 



125 



the fall between Rivervale and Medora becomes as low as eight 

 inches to the mile and between Rivervale and Shoals as low as 

 seven inches to the mile. On the West Fork there is only one 

 place where the fall goes below a foot to the mile, and that is between 

 Worthington and Newberry, where the fall is a little less than ten 

 inches to the mile. 



Meteorological Conditions 



Conditions for March 23-27, inclusive.- There is nothing to 

 be found in a study of the weather maps of the period preceding 

 the heavy rains that would indicate such conditions as caused the 

 doT\TLpour that followed. The ^Ioav' on Sunday night, IMarch 23, 

 1913, overlaid southeastern Nebraska. On that day there were 

 heavy rains from central Illinois to AYestern Ohio, over a strip of 

 country probably 200 miles wide and 500 miles long, the focus of 

 the hea\y rains being in northeastern Indiana and northwestern 

 Ohio. 



Rain fell uninterruptedly over the above territory, Sunday 

 night March 23. The amount of precipitation, however, was not 

 so great as on the following day. In Illinois, on March 24, rain 

 ceased, but the intensity over southern Indiana and southern Ohio 

 increased and was greater than on the previous day. Here an 

 important thing is to be noted: On ]\Iarch 23, the heaviest rainfall 

 was on the head waters of the Wabash, White River, and the rivers 

 of Ohio that flow into the Ohio River from the north; and on IMarch 



24, the heaviest rainfall had shifted to the lower parts of these 

 rivers. This is a reversal of the ordinary conditions; for the ordi- 

 nary storm moves from the lower part of these streams to the upper 

 portions of their drainage areas, thus giving the water that first 

 falls a chance to run away before the rainfall of the second period 

 reaches it. 



Monday night, IMarch 24-25, brought a continuation of the 

 rain over Illinois, Indiana, and northern Ohio. The same belt of 

 heavy rain extended along the lower part of the Great Lakes down 

 the St. Lawrence valley, into northern New England. As on 

 the day before, the area of heaviest precipitation was in central 

 Indiana and in central and northern Ohio during the daylight 

 hours of March 25. It was the rainfall of this day, Tuesday, IMarch 



25, with its average of 4.46 inches of rain at sixteen out of the twenty 

 stations in the White River drainage area, that sent the streams 

 of central Indiana on their mission of unprecedented destruction. 



2 Monthly Weather Review, March, 1913. 



