The water surrounding the 3,000-year-old Mendenhall Glacier, which draws tourists from around the world, is now threatening the city.since 2011, but this weekend’s overflow smashed previous water level records by nearly three feet. “It really exceeded our expectations,” said National Weather Service meteorologist Andrew Park, adding that it is “pretty devastating for the community.”Scientists are still learning a lot about the decade-old phenomenon, he said.
at first baffled as to why the river was rushing when there had been no rain. But then they found that a basin above the Mendenhall Glacier was creating enough pressure to push its water through the glacier and into Mendenhall Lake, Park said, causing an entirely new flooding threat to the community.“Water finds a way,” Park said. “It finds the weakest point.”
Since 2011, he said, scientists have studied the basin to monitor the situation around these annual releases — but this year’s outburst was historic. The Mendenhall Lake gauge crested about 11:30 p.m. local time Saturday night at a level of 14.97 feet, he said, which smashed the previous record of 11.99 feet set in July 2016.The lake’s level as of 10:15 a.m. local time Sunday was 8.
Scientists have said that although no weather event is caused solely by mankind’s influence, the frequency of extreme weather is increasing because of human-influenced