Pittsburgh Flood of 1936

Date: March 16, 1936 • Location: Pittsburgh, United States

Warmer-than-normal temperatures rapidly melt snow and ice on the upper Allegheny and Monongahela rivers, leading to a major flood in Pittsburgh.

The Allegheny River is a 325-mile-long (523 km) river that is located in western Pennsylvania and western New York in the United States. The chief tributary of the Ohio River, the Allegheny runs from its headwaters just below the center of Pennsylvania’s northern border, heads northwest into Western New York, then zigzags southwesterly back across the border to flow through Western Pennsylvania and finally join the Monongahela River at Forks of the Ohio near Downtown Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.