Paul Cantrell

That is…terrifying. Beyond terrifying. I’m sure I would not have prepared for this, or expected it, or even imagined it if I were staying there.

We are going to have to reset a whole lot of our expectations about what kind of weather is probable, pretty much everywhere on Earth. And we’re going to have to •keep• resetting them for as long as we keep changing the climate.
https://mastodon.world/@weathermatrix/114796979505937177

WeatherMatrix (Jesse Ferrell) (@[email protected])

Attached: 1 image The Guadeloupe River @ Comfort, Texas rose 12.93 feet in 15 minutes this morning. That's 10.34" per minute or an inch every 6 SECONDS. That's one of the fastest rises I've ever seen. Very hard to get away from that kind of flash flooding.

Mastodon
Jul 5, 2025 at 12:09amWeb
Show threadPaul CantrellJul 5, 2025

As someone posted a while back:

This isn’t the new normal. The new normal is wherever we’re at after we finally stop increasing atmospheric carbon.

This? This is just on the way to the new normal.

Show threadPaul CantrellJul 5, 2025

On the topic, I thought this series was quite good:

https://99percentinvisible.org/nbft/

It does a really good job of bringing together the threads of climate change, infrastructure, and the experiences of human beings.

Not Built For This - 99% Invisible

In a 6-part series, 99% Invisible explores how climate change is laying bare the vulnerabilities in the American built environment and how communities across the country have been left to bootstrap their own survival. We used to think of climate change in future tense, as something we’d have to deal with decades from now. But

99% Invisible
Show threadPaul CantrellJul 5, 2025
Hoping with all my heart for everyone missing in Texas.
Show thread@mweston has movedJul 5, 2025

@inthehands 99% Invisible is often great. That series was last year, so I listened to it (I'm way behind, but currently up to February 2025).

And that river rise rate is bonkers!

Show threadShadSterlingJul 5, 2025
@inthehands I wish we knew what the actual equilibrium temperature is - Earth is far from equilibrium now, absorbing far more energy than we’re radiating, so even if we stopped increasing greenhouse gas concentrations now we wouldn’t have a new normal for some time
Show threadHovav ShachamJul 5, 2025
@inthehands Central Texas is in Flash Flood Alley. I'm not saying the risk isn't exacerbated by climate change, but it's not new: https://www.weather.gov/ewx/wxevent-19870717
1987 Guadalupe River Flood

Show threadPaul CantrellJul 5, 2025

@hovav

Yes, I’m from Colorado (land of mountain flash floods) and was born shortly before the Big Thompson flood. I’m aware.

The point is not that these things never happened. It’s that the most extreme cases that almost never happened are now a thing one has to think about as a real likelihood.

Show threadJohn TimaeusJul 6, 2025

@inthehands @hovav

Note that this is at Comfort. Some 30-40 miles downstream from the initial event. That's a smoothed curve.