Good Saturday evening, bloggers,
Hopefully, you are having a good Fourth of July weekend. Sadly, it is not a good Fourth of July in south Texas, as a major flood disaster has occurred and is still going on.
Over the last 2-3 days, 10"-20" of rain has occurred down there; most fell in a 10-hour period Thursday night into Friday.
The water all funneled into the Guadalupe River, creating a flash flood. Thirty-two people have been killed, and there are around 25 more girls missing as of 5 p.m. Saturday. So terrible.
There are 3 main reasons this occurred:
1. The obvious is the amount of rain in a short amount of time. We average 39" of rain in a year, so this is like getting almost half of our annual rainfall in two days, and it occurring over most of eastern Kansas and western Missouri.
2. This is partially due to the remnants of what was a weak and short-lived tropical storm, Barry, that made landfall around Tampico, Mexico, on June 30. It did cause major flooding down there. Then, the remnants tracked north into south Texas, stalled and combined with the monsoon moisture, creating a major flood event.
3. And this may be the oddest. As of the July 1 drought monitor, these locations were at a level 5 of 5 drought, also known as an exceptional drought. The dry ground may not have been able to absorb as much rain as it would have had it not been so dry. But had this been a 3"-5" rain event, this disaster would not have happened. This means reason No. 1 is the main reason.
Now, we have locations, mostly along and south of I-70 in KC, that could really use rain. There is a chance tonight.
I have more on the Texas flood disaster and our interesting summer weather pattern in the 4 1/2-minute video below.
Have a great rest of your holiday weekend.
Stay safe, stay healthy.
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