Texas was cursed with a perfect storm – but there’s a bigger picture

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A week after the Texas floods, rescuers continue to search for 173 people who are missing. More than 120 are confirmed dead, including 27 from a girls’ summer camp. Satellite imagery shows the once pristine campground churned into mud and debris.

So what? The debate around who or what was to blame for the disaster has typically divided along partisan lines. But storms don’t take sides, and this one has raised questions about

• the impact Trump’s actions had on the deadliness of the floods;
• how much humans can predict extreme weather events; and
• to what degree climate change will make things harder.

Perfect storm. The severity of the flash floods was in part due to the geology of the area, which has a fault zone that can intensify rainfall patterns. This bit of Texas is known as “flash flood alley” because of a history of devastating storms caused by its

• steep terrain;
• poor soil absorption;
• narrow canyons;
• major river basins; and
• position between cold air from the north and warm, moist air from the Gulf of Mexico.

Last mile. The scale of devastation was also due to timing. The US National Weather Service issued flood watch messages on Thursday afternoon, but it wasn’t until early Friday – when most Texans were in bed – that warnings escalated.

• 1.14am. The weather service issues its first flash flood warning at a “considerable” level, with three more sent over the following hours.
• 4.03am. The service issues a “catastrophic” warning after the Guadalupe river more than doubles its height in 90 minutes.
• 5.16am. The local police department issues a flood alert that warns of a “life-threatening event”. By this point the Guadalupe has exceeded 37 feet, breaking the previous record and five times its normal height.
• 5.32am. The sheriff’s office tells residents to “move to higher ground immediately”.

Could the NWS have done more? Despite suggestions otherwise, probably not. Weather models are better than ever, with a four-day forecast as accurate as a one-day forecast 30 years ago. But there are limitations. The “butterfly effect” was coined to describe how tiny changes in the atmosphere cause vastly different outcomes. It is nearly impossible to predict the exact locations and intensity of thunderstorms days in advance.

Heavy weather. There was also a freakishness to the floods, with less than 0.1 per cent chance of so much rain falling in affected areas in any given year. But climate change is making these events more frequent and intense because warm air absorbs more moisture than cool air, per the Clausius-Clapeyron equation.

To wit: “extreme” precipitation rose by up to 15 per cent in Texas from 1980 to 2020.

Pointed fingers. The Trump administration's sweeping attempts to shrink the federal government have directly impacted the NWS and its parent agency, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. By the numbers:

• 600 – staff lost by the NWS since February through firings, early retirements and voluntary redundancies from a total of 4,200
• 61.5 per cent – the current vacancy rate at two local offices in California and Kansas
• 22 per cent – the vacancy rate at the San Antonio office, which was central to forecasting last week’s storm

Beyond the noise. Layoffs may hinder the ability to respond to future crises but there’s no evidence cuts made the situation worse in Texas. Although San Antonio didn’t have a “warning coordinating meteorologist” to liaise with emergency management services during a severe weather event, the office had extra forecasters on duty.

Bigger picture. The Trump administration has proposed increasing the NWS budget by nearly 7 per cent in 2026, but reducing the NOAA’s by 25 per cent. This would jeopardise labs that produce forecast tools and conduct research to better predict extreme localised rainfall.

What’s more… That research would help not just Americans, but everyone.