Texas, flash flood
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the Floods in Texas Tell Us About Climate Change
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"Let's put an end to the conspiracy theories and stop blaming others," Texas Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller said in a statement.
As a succession of thunderstorms fed by the remnants of Tropical Storm Barry pummeled Texas' Hill Country, tools used by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to detect extreme rainfall began “maxing out the color charts.
"These are roughly one-in-1,000-year events, [and] would be extremely rare in the absence of human-caused warming,” one climate scientist says.
Texas Hill Country is no stranger to extreme flooding. In the rugged, rolling terrain it’s known for, heavy rains collect quickly in its shallow streams and rivers that can burst into torrents like the deadly flood wave that swept along the Guadalupe River on July 4.
Climate change is making severe storms worse, heightening the need for the development of advanced forecasting models, but severe storm research is on the chopping block.
Meteorologists point out that hurricanes and flood-making storms possess extraordinary amounts of energy that humans can't reproduce or control.
Radar data can estimate rainfall to a fairly accurate amount. The rain data in the case of the deadly tragedy that unfolded in the Texas Hill Country last weekend shows exactly why the area around Camp Mystic and the Guadalupe River, outside of San Antonio, had such a raging flash flood.
Meanwhile, anguished parents waited for word on the 10 young campers still missing from Camp Mystic, which was hit hard by floodwaters.