Meteorologist Breaks Down The Reason Behind Yellowstone Flooding

For the first time in 150 years, Yellowstone National Park is fully closed.

Flooding and collapsed roads and washed them away. Bridges and homes are gone.

According to regional meteorologist Don Day, of Day Weather, it was not the "perfect storm" it was events lining up "perfectly" over time.

The mountains of Yellowstone got lots of snow this past winter and into the spring.

Warm weather did not come until late in the spring, which allowed even more snow to pile up.

Then, suddenly, warm summer-like temperatures arrived at the same time as some warm thunderstorms.

Those thunderstorms dumped a lot of rain in a short period of time.

The warm rain with the warm weather melted lots of snow.

And there you have the flooding that hit the park on Monday.

More rain and snow are coming to the park this week.  But it is not enough to bring back the flooding that happened early in the week. Though it's not going to help either.

The water should slowly back off and the park will return to its regular summer water flow as the snowpack in the higher elevations melts.

Floods like this last one in Yellowstone are not "unprecedented." The "stars" line up to bring events like this every now and again. But floods this big just don't happen that often.

As the water subsides the damage will be assessed and then the rebuilding will begin. The questions that we need to answer are, how much will it cost to repair and how long will it take.