Aug. 14 2025
More and more, a distressing trend enters public discussion – flash floods are increasing in frequency and severity. So far in 2025, the National Weather Service has issued more flood warnings than in any year on record since 1986. Floods are also striking in places that historically haven’t been high-risk zones. As stated in our Appalachian Federal Flood Policy Platform:
The American Communities Project has stated that “Appalachia is ground zero for rainfall,” the risk of increasingly extreme rainfall is particularly high for Kentucky, West Virginia, and Ohio. 2 New precipitation frequency modeling by researchers at First Street Foundation found that extreme events (e.g. 1-in-100 year flood events) are likely to occur much more frequently than every 100 years, especially for the Ohio River Basin.
So why is this happening? One major culprit is moisture. Climate conditions outside of the region, especially in the Gulf of Mexico, will increasingly influence the persistence and force of natural disasters locally. Rising global temperatures, including in our oceans, are increasing evaporation – meaning our atmosphere is holding more moisture. When these moisture-laden clouds are swept, and then wrung out over Appalachia it can result in severe flash floods and subsequent disasters like landslides. West of the Rockies, vaporized sea water from the Pacific is causing similar devastation. The national uptick of flood disasters comes with increased evacuations, higher death counts, growing uncertainty, and economic instability. Advocating for comprehensive, modern solutions to the climate crisis, more than merely being an act of good environmental stewardship, is an immediate and existential necessity for Appalachian communities.
Background on flooding in Appalachia
With every 1 degree Fahrenheit increase in temperature, the atmosphere holds between 4 and 7 percent more water. As a result, currents of moist air can form that can carry over great distances. These currents are referred to as atmospheric rivers. Wind circulation, ocean surface temperature, and landscape features help determine the path and shape these rivers take, and different natural forces can make atmospheric rivers turn into rain. When they run into mountains, they can be forced upwards into cooler altitudes. This can condense the vapors into rain.
The rivers can also turn into downpour when they collide with fronts (boundaries between two large air masses). Conditions are especially right for front condensation over Tennessee and Kentucky, where atmospheric rivers rising up from the Gulf and the Caribbean Sea often impact cool air fronts from the North. The phenomenon where natural forces or landscape features cool vapors and turn them into rain drops is called wringing out. The moisture that rises up to Appalachia might not be so bad if various natural factors didn’t wring out the the the vapors directly over the region.
What can be done?
So, meteorological conditions, not just outside of the region, but outside the country, place Appalachia on a direct path of impact for deadly disasters.
What does that mean for the region? We feel we have to approach the issue from two angles – the first angle is to increase flood resiliency in the region, so the land can better absorb water in extreme rain events, and so communities can better prepare and respond to floods. The second angle is to lower the regional carbon footprint to mitigate the impacts of warmer air and warmer water. We can tackle this existential issue while creating jobs, improving our communities, and taking practical mitigation steps.
Strengthening regional flood resiliency
Our flood policy platform and recent series of flooding webinars highlight the unique ways flooding impacts Appalachia, as well as harm-reducing solutions. It also gives a four-pronged approach that promotes the social, technological, and governmental action needed within the region to mitigate crises.
Pillar I: Increase local and state capacity to respond and recover
Advocating for more funding for programs like FEMA’s Flood Mitigation Assistance (FMA) and Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities (BRIC) would help ensure under-resourced areas have financial and staff resources for disaster response.
Pillar II: Relieve the recovery and mitigation burden for low-income households
Flooding in Appalachia can puts out of their homes or destroys homes entirely. Without access to or information about financial relief, many affected homeowners must turn to steep loans and credit card use, worsening financial hardship in affected areas. The platform calls for more funding for grants that specifically assist low-income homeowners. It also calls for funding for education options for things like home insurance.
Pillar III: Improve flood mapping and data inputs
The platform calls for increased investment in flood-tracking technology, with no exception for rural areas. Stream gauges measure the swell of rivers and streams. If implemented regionwide, they can help quantify how likely certain weather patterns are to result in flooding in Appalachia. The region also needs more investment to build out digital flood maps that can be updated with changing weather patterns.
Pillar IV: Invest in Nature-Based Hazard Mitigation
A major contributor to regional flooding is forest removal from mining operations. Strategically reforesting cleared areas in a way that supports the region’s native biodiversity will directly aid water absorption, reduce landslides, and help protect communities.
Tackling our Carbon Footprint
The Appalachian region is home to some of the nation’s major energy-producing states. Pennsylvania and West Virginia. Ohio usually ranks third in national lists of top manufacturing states. The energy and manufacturing sectors tend to create a lot of heat and pump out high levels of CO2, and this directly contributes to climbing global temperatures. Two Appalachian states often place fourth and fifth on the list of top emitters of greenhouse gases — Pennsylvania and Ohio, respectively. But addressing global warming does not require that we weaken these sectors, but instead that we strengthen and reinforce them with cleaner, more advanced technologies. Fortunately, this is a movement that has already been significantly set in motion. This year, in collaboration with Keystone Research Center, we released a report on the investment boom in renewable energy and clean manufacturing. Its findings include the following:
- Federal clean energy investment in the region increased 17-fold in just two years, from $422 million in 2022 to nearly $7.4 billion in 2024.
- This public funding unlocked $40+ billion in total investment, with private capital outpacing federal dollars by 3 to 4 times.
- Both Republican and Democratic districts benefited from regional clean energy investments, showing the broad impact of these federal policies.
These investments have not only strengthened industry, but they have also created jobs, as the report shows:
- Form Energy (Weirton, WV): Building iron-air batteries with the support of up to $150 million in IIJA grant funding, creating 750 manufacturing jobs on a former steel mill site.
- Eos Energy (Turtle Creek, PA): Expanding zinc-bromine battery production with the help of a $303.5 million DOE loan, creating up to 1,000 jobs.
Conclusion
Clean energy and manufacturing investments make good economic sense and play into the region’s longstanding strengths. They are also among the region’s most direct means of helping to address global warming in the Western Hemisphere. By pairing clean energy and manufacturing advocacy with common-sense flood mitigation efforts at home – we will take major steps to respond to global phenomena that are “seemingly” out of our control.