|Abstract:||During the period March 9-22, 1936, there occurred
in close succession over the northeastern United States, from
the James and upper Ohio River Basins in Virginia and
Pennsylvania to the river basins of Maine, two extraordinarily
heavy storms, in which the precipitation was almost entirely in
the form of rain. The depths of rainfall mark this period as one
of the greatest concentrations of precipitation, in respect to
time and magnitude of the area covered, of which there is record
in this country. At the time of the rain there were also
accumulations of snow on the ground over much of the storm-
affected region that were large for the season. The
comparatively warm temperatures associated with the storms
thawed the snow and added materially to the quantities of water
to be disposed of by drainage into the waterways, by surface
storage in lakes, ponds, and reservoirs, by absorption in the
ground, and, probably in comparatively negligible degree, by
evaporation. The total quantity of water that had