A tropical storm is flooding Texas with up to 43 inches of rain, just 2 weeks after Hurricane Dorian. Here's why storms are getting stronger, slower, and wetter.
Tropical Storm Imelda, now a tropical depression, has flooded southeastern Texas with rainfall totals of up to 43 inches. That makes Imelda the seventh-wettest tropical cyclone in US history.
The flooding appears to be worse than that of Hurricane Harvey, and it's impacting similar areas in and around Houston. Homes that weren't flooded by Harvey are flooding now, Jefferson County Judge Jeff Branick told the Associated Press on Thursday.
"What I'm sitting in right now makes Harvey look like a little thunderstorm," Chambers County Sheriff Brian Hawthorne told ABC 13...warming overall makes hurricanes more frequent and devastating than they would otherwise be.
That's because higher water temperatures lead to sea-level rise, which increases the risk of flooding during high tides and in the event of storms surges. Warmer air also holds more atmospheric water vapor, which enables tropical storms to strengthen and unleash more precipitation.
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"With warmer oceans caused by global warming, we can expect the strongest storms to get stronger," James Elzner, an atmospheric scientist at Florida State University, told Yale.
That can also mean that storms are able to intensify and develop into powerful hurricanes in a shorter time span.
Here's what to know about why storms are getting so much stronger, wetter, and slower.
https://www.businessinsider.com/cli...-why-storms-are-wetter-stronger-slower-2019-7