What to know about extreme flooding — and ways to stay safe
July has washed across the United States with unusually destructive, deadly torrents of rain.
In the first half of the month alone, historically heavy downpours sent rivers in Central Texas spilling far beyond their banks, causing at least 130 deaths. Rains prompted flash flooding across wildfire-scarred landscapes in New Mexico and flooded subway stations in New York City. Roadways in New Jersey turned into rivers, sweeping two people to their deaths as the floodwaters carried away their car. A tropical depression dumped up to 30 centimeters of rain in one day on parts of North Carolina, leading to at least six more deaths.
And heavy downpours continue to inundate Texas and the Midwest, even as a tropical rainstorm bears down on the Gulf Coast, threatening more flash floods in the region.
In the midst of the deluge, the U.S. Commerce Department this month indefinitely suspended work on the Atlas 15 project. The massive dataset, which was nearing completion, had aimed to update decades-old data on national rainfall in order to assess how climate change will affect the frequency and risks of extreme rainfall around the country.
Such storms are not just affecting the United States. Devastating floods have also slammed Mexico, Pakistan and Nigeria in recent weeks. And this supersoaked weather shows no signs of letting up.
To find out what’s behind this extreme rainfall, Science News talked with Joellen Russell, an oceanographer and climate modeler at the University of Arizona in Tucson. [Continue reading…]