The catastrophic floods in the Czech lands in July 1997 and August 2002 showed that historical flood memory had been lost. The little used sources to recover it include early printed books. This article brings a selection of everal exceptional flood cases captured by printed documents from the 16th–18th centuries. Extant early printed books and the information that they contain (verified from other sources where possible) suitably complement and extend the potential of historical hydrology and meteorology for the study and documentation of early floods that occurred before the beginning of instrumental observations and measurements.
Clandestine flash flood in southern Moravia from 9 June 1970 (to commemorate the 40th anniversary of natural disaster which claimed 35 human lives). The article is devoted to a today already forgotten flash flood, which was considered extreme from multiple viewpoints. It happened 40 years ago, on 9 June 1970, in the Kyjov region in southern Moravia on several small watercourses in the basin of rivers Kyjovka and Trkmanka (left-bank tributaries of the Dyje/Thaya R.). The event was exceptional no only by the amount of fallen precipitation and by the discharge responses on the streams but also by the extent of domage caused by storm waters. Nevertheless, the flood had more attributes, which point out its extreme character. By the number of 35 victims it ranks among the most tragic (not only local) floods that occurred in the territory of the Czech Republic in the 20th century. Moreover, this natural catastrophe happened in the period of culminating Communist "normalization", which mirrored in a considerable effort of government authorities to restrict the information about its disastrous impact.