The Texas Floods Are So Big They Ended the State’s Drought
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Source: Wired
Texas really cant seem to catch a break. A month ago, the Lone Star state was in the middle of a dry emergency: Its reservoirs were draining, its depleted aquifers were sucking in the earth above. As of Wednesday, though, the state is saturated. Four weeks of dousing storms have swept away property, roads, lives, and prompted governor Greg Abbott to declare 37 counties as disaster areas.
The devastation caused by these floods is heart-wrenching. But you could consider Texas weather whiplash to be a good thing: These dousing storms, which seem more and more like the consequence of a strengthening El Niño, have brought an end to a four-year water shortage. Just how much of a silver lining these floods are creating, though, depends on the particular geography of Texas different regionsit is a gigantic place, yall. And the lands composition also plays a crucial role in just how bad the flooding has gotten.
Texas is a big state, and there is a big contrast in what happens when rain falls, says Ronald Kaiser, a water expert at Texas A&M in College Station. Theres no perfect way to slice up the states water resources, but broadly, you can think of it in four parts.
East of highway I-35 to the Gulf Coastcrowned by Houstonis low and flat, with dense soils and a shallow clay layer that makes it easy to flood. This is where rain falls hardest, rivers run thickest, and most of the states reservoirs are located. Theres a joke that if its overcast in Houston youll get flooding, says Kaiser. Which is why things got so bad so quickly when 10 inches fell on the city Monday night. Talk about a punchline.
From a water supply standpoint, the storms were great for this part of the state. As you can see in the graphic on the left, every reservoir in the eastern part of the state is above 90 percent full (the graphic was updated May 28). But the area also set itself up for more devastating consequences from the rainfall, because during the drought east Texas water districts were pumping groundwater. This leads to so-called subsidence: The ground literally loses elevation as the water is sucked out from under it. Because its so low and flat there, even a foot of shrinkage can lead to a lot more standing water. Though subsidence has mostly stabilized in recent years, in the past parts the Houston area were sinking at rates up to three inches a year. Add that to .08 inches of sea level rise a year, and Houston was primed for flood...MORE
Read more: http://www.wired.com/2015/05/texas-floods-big-ended-states-drought/
Romeo.lima333
(1,127 posts)breaking up is hard to do
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Buzz Clik
(38,437 posts)He never once mentioned global warming.
LanternWaste
(37,748 posts)He did however, mention El Niño which is the primary mechanism that's been driving the weather patterns in Texas over the past three weeks.-- which is (I think) what the article is about.
Buzz Clik
(38,437 posts)... in which the author of the OP chided Governor Abbot for not mentioning global climate change in his press conference.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=6729034
Kaiser, of course, is totally correct.
daleanime
(17,796 posts)but it will take more then 4 weeks to restore ground water level.
durablend
(7,465 posts)Igel
(35,359 posts)Parts of the state are still in drought.
Parts of the state barely had a drought.
The "drought" (or its absence) depended on your definition: Soil moisture gave one answer, water table saturation another, reservoir tallies a third.
The media goes with whichever definition is the most dire or the most flattering. And barely hint that there are, perhaps, different standards and that the area over which they're applied is large.
Where I live we've had above average rainfall all winter and spring. It's been so wet that I've had trouble getting into my garden (or at times backyard) to do yard work, and that's not in just the last week. The water table is about 1/4" below the surface and, apart from a week or two in February and March, has been since January. Yet because the reservoirs were low some could claim that we still had a drought. Over 90% of the water where I live comes from wells, so that really didn't matter.
TexasBushwhacker
(20,215 posts)to cover the entire state with 8" of water.
Chemisse
(30,817 posts)This is analysis, so not suitable for LBN.
Please consider reposting this in GD.