Young Earth - Is There a Balance Between Uniformitarianism and Catastrophism?

Young earth supporters make a case based on their understanding of biblical passages. They acknowledge that there may be catastrophic events like noah's flood. But most of the time we see laws operating that make slow, incremental changes. The real question for both perspectives is what's the right balance between uniformitarianism and catastrophism? And how long of a time scale do the resulting and rapid processes have to play out?