The scope of the tragedy unfolding in central Texas is still not entirely clear. At least 81 people have died in flooding caused by massive, slow-moving downpours in Kerr County and surrounding areas, including 27 campers and counselors from a summer camp. And the National Weather Service still has flood watches and warnings in place through at least 7 PM on Monday, with inches more rain expected.
At least 28 of the victims identified so far are children, and more are still missing. Water level gauges from a NOAA prediction service showed remarkably rapid spikes in rivers across the area, with water jumping by 20 feet or more and crossing into “major flood stage” levels within just a couple of hours or less of the flood’s beginning. The National Weather Service in San Antonio said Monday that two to four more inches of rain could fall today, with “isolated amounts” up to a catastrophic ten inches in some areas. It will not get easier for rescue workers just yet.
The obvious argument surrounding what is already among the deadliest flooding events in the US in the past century has been smoldering for a few days now, surrounding the question of whether Trump administration targeting of NOAA and the NWS hindered the forecast, warnings, or response to the unfolding disaster. It does appear that some “key roles” in Texas were vacant, but the forecast itself was likely not much different from what it would have been a year ago; there is a chance that communicating the risks with local officials was slower or more difficult, but it will likely take a more thorough post-hoc look at the chain of events to make firm conclusions.
What is almost certainly true, though, is that the warming climate made this worse. We may get attribution studies linking climate change to the flood soon, but the reality today is that all weather events now start from a strikingly different baseline, and proving that warming did not play a significant role is the new requirement. For major rainstorms, it’s simple physics: the warmer atmosphere can hold more moisture, and that means it has more to drop on us. Even Trump’s anti-EPA knows this: nine of the top 10 years for extreme one-day precipitation events have come since 1995, and the portion of the US that has experienced such extreme events has increased steadily in recent decades. With future warming, it will get worse.
In Texas, at least 41 people remain unaccounted for as of Monday morning. The rain will continue, regardless.
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