It was a gloomy Friday on Oct. 29th when the staff at the IAN offices began taking and trading photos with each other of rising floodwater on both sides of the Bay in Annapolis and the Eastern Shore.

This tidal flooding event, according to the National Weather Service, was comparable to the flooding from Hurricane Isabel, at least in certain areas.¹ The large size of the tidal flood was caused by a high tide mixed together with lots of wind and rain; the wind was forcing water close to the shoreline and this seems to be a key factor for the flooding.^2,3 Knowing that the flood would only continue into the evening, staff at IAN took the chance to document the conditions of what was happening on the ground.

After some coordination, and in the midst of heavy wind, several of the science communicators geared up to document the event around the Annapolis, Cambridge, and Centreville areas. Here is a sample of their photos:

The mid-Atlantic region received around 1–2 inches of rain, and, at its peak, the flood stage level in Annapolis was 4.90 feet, the fourth-highest level on record for Annapolis; for other areas around the Bay, the flood stage level was even higher.^2,1

Early on Friday, well before the flooding would reach its peak, my coworker and I took a trip to the edge of the docks outside the IAN Cambridge office. Once we arrived I almost wanted to lean my back into the wind so I could be held up without effort.