Montana State professor publishes paper on lessons learned from 2022 Yellowstone flood

BOZEMAN — About this time last year, Montana State University professor Hugo Sindelar was hiking to snowy mountain peaks with his camera gear, attempting to film rain driving into blankets of snow. 

That shot would be key to helping illustrate how, in June 2022, heavy rains rapidly melted mountain snowpacks, causing rivers to swell above their banks, resulting in historic flooding in Yellowstone National Park and surrounding communities. 

Sindelar, an assistant professor in the School of Film and Photography in the College of Arts and Architecture, also filmed interviews with 18 people affected by the catastrophic flooding in the Yellowstone region. His research and inquiries about the floods have produced multiple academic endeavors. He is in the final production stages of a documentary titled “One in Five Hundred,” and his companion article about his research and what he learned while creating the film has been published by the Natural Hazards Center, a division of the National Science Foundation.