List of floods


A flood is an overflow of water that submerges land that is usually dry. In the sense of "flowing water", the word may also be applied to the inflow of the tide. Floods are an area of study of the discipline hydrology and are of significant concern in agriculture, civil engineering and public health.

List of floods

20th century BCE

  • Jishi Gorge outburst flood about 1920 BCE

    14th century

  • Saint Marcellus' flood a storm tide is also called the "Second St. Marcellus flood".
  • St. Mary Magdalene's flood occurred on and around the feast day of St. Mary Magdalene, 25 July; the passage of a Genoa low the rivers Rhine, Moselle, Main, Danube, Weser, Werra, Unstrut, Elbe, Vltava and their tributaries inundated large areas. Even the river Eider north of Hamburg flooded the surrounding land. Many towns such as Cologne, Mainz, Frankfurt am Main, Würzburg, Regensburg, Passau and Vienna were seriously damaged. The affected area extended to Carinthia and northern Italy. The overall number of casualties is not known, but it is believed that in the Danube area alone 6000 people were killed.

    15th century

  • The All Saints Day Flood of 1436 on All Saints' Day 1436 was a storm tide that hit the entire North Sea coast of the German Bight. In the North Frisian village of Tetenbüll alone 173 people died. Eidum on the island of Sylt was destroyed; its inhabitants left and founded the village of Westerland as a result. List on Sylt was also abandoned after the floods and rebuilt further west. Dykes burst along the river Oste and in Kehdingen. The island of Pellworm was separated from neighbouring Nordstrand, Germany and only diked again in 1550.

    16th century

  • 1530 St. Felix's flood
  • Mississippi River Flood of March 1543. The flooding reportedly lasted for 40 days.

    17th century

  • The California Flood of 1605 was caused by heavy rains and covered many parts of California in water.
  • The Burchardi Flood was a storm tide that struck the North Sea coast of North Frisia and Dithmarschen on the night between 11 and 12 October 1634. Overrunning dikes, it shattered the coastline and caused thousands of deaths.

    18th century

  • Christmas Flood of 1717. Flood in Netherlands, Germany, and Scandinavia. 14,000 drowned.
  • Mississippi River Flood of December 1734 to June 1735. New Orleans was inundated by the flooding.
  • New Hampshire Flood of 1740. The Merrimack River flooded in December. It is the first recorded flood in New Hampshire history.
  • New Hampshire/Maine Flood of October 1785. In New Hampshire, a significant flood struck the Cocheco, Baker, Pemigewasset, Contoocook and Merrimack rivers on 23 October which established records at Lowell which held until 1902. The Androscoggin River flooded significantly, which destroyed many homesteads in what would become Bethel, Maine. Those that survived the flood moved uphill into less valuable, plots. Turner's first mill was destroyed during this inundation.
  • Great Pumpkin Flood of October 1786. Central Pennsylvania flood. Received its name due to the pumpkins that were washed away in the flood on 5 October. It was a major flood in the Susquehanna River basin.
  • Mississippi River Flood of July 1788. Severe flooding of the Mississippi River resulted from a hurricane landfall
  • Storofsen, Norway, flood of July 1789
  • Red River of the South flood of 1800. According to the Caddo tribe, a "great flood" moved down the river and reinforced the "Great Log Raft" on the river. This raft was a natural dam that increased water levels on some of the Red River tributaries. This process formed Caddo Lake.

    19th century

  • Mississippi River Flood of 1809. All of the lower Mississippi River was inundated by flooding.
  • Mississippi River Flood of 1825. The flood of 1825 is the last known inundation of New Orleans due to spring flooding
  • Great Mississippi River Flood of 1844. The largest flood ever recorded on the Missouri River and Upper Mississippi River in terms of discharge. This flood was particularly devastating since the region had few if any levees at the time. Among the hardest hit were the Wyandot who lost 100 people in the diseases that occurred after the flood. The flood also is the highest recorded for the Mississippi River at St. Louis. After the flood, Congress in 1849 passed the Swamp Act providing land grants to build stronger levees.
  • Great Mississippi River Flood of 1851. The flood occurred after record-setting rainfalls across the U.S. Midwest and Plains from May to August 1851. The State of Iowa experienced significant flooding extending to the Lower Mississippi River basin. Historical evidence suggest flooding occurred in the eastern Plains, from Nebraska to the Red River basin, but these areas were sparsely settled in 1851. Heavy rainfall also occurred in the Ohio River basin. In June, major flooding on the Mississippi River was experienced.
  • The Great Flood of 1862. Struck the west coast of North America in December 1861 and January 1862. An atmospheric river from the tropics brought 43 days of rain to the U.S. states of California, Utah and Oregon as well as the Mexican state of Sonora. It was the worst disaster ever to strike California; the state's Central Valley was effectively an inland sea for months afterwards. State government temporarily moved to San Francisco because the capital, Sacramento, was under 10 feet of water; the damage and the ensuing shortfall in tax revenues nearly bankrupted the state.
  • The 1872 Baltic Sea flood. Storm surge that affected the Baltic Sea coast from Denmark to Pomerania on the night of 12–13 November 1872. The flood cost the lives of at least 271 people on the Baltic Sea coast; 2,850 houses were destroyed or at least badly damaged and 15,160 people left homeless as a result.
  • Great Mississippi River Flood of 1874. Heavy spring rains caused the Mississippi River to overflow, breaching levees and flooding enormous swathes of the Lower Mississippi Valley. The flooding began in February and only began to recede on 20 May. According to the New Orleans Daily Picayune of 3 May, thirty-one of Louisiana's fifty-three parishes were entirely or partially underwater. The Picayune also reported that breaches at Hushpakana and Bolivar, Mississippi, had "transformed the Yazoo Valley into an inland lake." Mayor Louis A. Wiltz of New Orleans published a circular on 30 May addressed to "the Mayors of thirty-four large American cities" seeking contributions of cash and provisions for relief efforts. In the circular, the Flood of 1874 was described as the highest on record. It also included the observations of former U.S. Surveyor General for Louisiana William J. McCulloh, who estimated that a total of 12,565,060 acres had been flooded across Louisiana, Mississippi, and Arkansas.
  • Mississippi River Flood of 1882. Intense spring rain storms, beginning on 19 February 1882, led to a rapid rise of the Ohio River and flooding along the river from Cincinnati to St. Louis. The effects were much more devastating in the Lower Mississippi Valley, with an estimated 20,000 people made homeless in Arkansas alone. Such was the devastation that, in its wake, Southern Democrats and Midwestern Republicans in Congress hailing from those states afflicted by the flooding made common cause to increase appropriations for the Rivers and Harbor Act to $19 million, $5.4 million of which was earmarked for internal improvements and federal aid to the flooded areas. While not opposed to internal improvements on principle, President Chester A. Arthur nonetheless vetoed the Act on 1 August 1882. Congress overrode his veto the following day.
  • In 1889, the South Fork Dam broke, causing the massive Johnstown Flood of 1889 that took 2,209 lives in Johnstown, Pennsylvania.
  • On 8 September 1900, in Galveston, Texas, a storm made landfall, leaving about 7,000 to 12,000 dead. It remains to the present day the deadliest single-day event in US history.

    20th Century

1910s