East coast getting hammered...again

Stay safe east coast family!

Storms and erosion aren't new, but there's something else going on here, that's making every storm a little more serious: Tidal gauges here have measured an increase in sea level. It's gone up seven inches over 30 years -- that's 5.5 millimeters per year, and almost two feet per century.

Dr. John Boon, a professor emeritus with the Virginia Institute of Marine Science, says the sea level is rising throughout this region, and some parts have it particularly bad.

"We have relative sea-level rise rates that are the highest on the U.S. East Coast," he says.

You may wonder why or how sea level rise might be any different here versus anywhere else.

"The ocean circulation moves water masses to different parts of the globe, and gravity changes as ice masses at the polar regions melt, there's differential heating in the oceans," Boon says.

But in our region there's an extra factor: The ground is sinking. It's called "subsidence," and Boon says it's been going on for a while now.




It would seem all this massive amounts of rainfall are contributing to the subsidence issue