Overview

• Search operations continue in Texas for more than 100 people missing after what officials called a “once-in-century flood” that claimed at least 134 lives.
• Initial ClimaMeter analysis attributes recent record rainfall magnitudes primarily to human-driven warming, ruling out natural variability alone.
• Federal agencies are overhauling flood-risk models, with NOAA updating its systems and the Commerce Department indefinitely suspending final work on its near-complete Atlas 15 project.
• Since 1970, 88% of 144 U.S. cities have reported rising hourly rainfall intensity, with recent storms dumping 20–40% more water than mid-20th-century baselines.
• Aging storm-water infrastructure, such as New York City’s century-old sewers rated for 1.75 inches of rain per hour, is overwhelmed by modern precipitation extremes.