Dallas, Texas — More flash floods threaten the Dallas area after cars and trucks were inundated early Monday by flash storms fueled by a climate crisis that stunned parts of stricken Texas this summer with a “rapid drought.”
Dallas County remained on flash flood warning until 10 a.m. Monday, with wider flood hours covering nearly 15 million people from northeastern Texas to northern Louisiana and as far south as Arkansas from the same system that unleashed torrential rain and flash floods at the end of this week in parts of the Southwest. .
Dallas received full summer rain between Sunday noon and Monday morning, with more than 7 inches, according to National Weather Service observations at Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport. This rate is only projected once every 50 years, on average.
Dallas also got just over 3 inches of rain in just one hour overnight — also an average of about 1 to 50 years precipitation, according to estimates by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
Cassondra Anna May Stewart, who captured a video of the dark watery scene, said rapidly rising water surrounded vehicles at about 3 a.m. on Interstate 30 in Dallas.
“I was able to park on a ramp to get off the highway,” she said. “I took an alternate route home…although most of the streets were flooded there as well.”
At about that time, “trained weather watchers reported significant flash floods underway through Dallas with several roads and cars inundated, including Interstate 30 at Interstate 45 near downtown Dallas,” according to a 3 p.m. flash flood warning statement. :21 AM.
Cities in Monday’s flood control area include Dallas, Fort Worth and Austin, Texas, and Shreveport, Louisiana. Area under moderate danger – level 3 out of 4 – heavy rain. Precipitation rates of 2 to 3 inches per hour are observed as storms move slowly through the area, creating the potential for up to 3 to 5 inches of rain.
Sign for “climate shift”
The Dallas area deluge was coordinated with a “rapid drought” that developed during this extremely dry year throughout Texas. An exceptional drought—the highest rating—is found in Dallas and Tarrant counties and blankets over a quarter of the state.
“For the past half year, a rainfall deficit of 8 inches to more than a foot has affected areas of central Texas near and south of Dallas/Fort Worth to the Gulf Coast,” said the Drift Monitor summary on Thursday.
But that lack of rainfall will be essentially erased after Monday in Dallas, although significant shortfalls persist in other areas of Texas.
Human-caused climate change has increased the likelihood of this type of weather episode, as dramatic fluctuations in droughts and often higher precipitation can occur.
Scientists say that a greater proportion of rain in recent years has come during “intensive one-day events,” and that the potential for abrupt transitions from extreme drought to heavy rainfall will become more common on a warming planet. In fact, nine of the first 10 years of extreme one-day rainfall events have occurred since 1996.
Precipitation on Earth has become more frequent and intense with each degree of warming since the 1980s. That’s because warmer air can hold more water, causing storms like Hurricane Harvey, which hit Texas in 2017, to create not only devastating storms and winds, but also more severe inland flooding.
Monday’s precipitation averaged this month to the third wettest August on record in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, with more than 7 inches in total so far—the most rainy month for a month since 1915.
Before the Texas floods, rain continued on Sunday in parts of Arizona and New Mexico after flooding in previous days in parts of the Southwest.
In Utah, trekkers Friday “swept their feet” in Zion National Park due to a flash flood. On Saturday, the park said search and rescue team members are working to find a lost park near the Virgin River.
In New Mexico, about 160 people had to take shelter for several hours in Carlsbad Caverns National Park on Saturday due to flooding, the city of Carlsbad said in a Facebook post.
The National Park Service said the park was closed Sunday. The National Park Service added that “maintenance crews will begin assessing and clearing debris from the road.”
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