Weekend Weather Alert: Storms to Slam Texas, Midwest, and New Mexico

Following a week of intense storms that soaked the East Coast and caused deadly floods in the South, more rain is expected, posing a fresh risk of flooding in still-raging Texas and New Mexico.

As of Friday morning, Iowa and parts of Illinois are soaked with heavy rain as storms move across the Midwest.

From northern Missouri into western Michigan, 19 million people are at risk from dangerous storms that might affect major cities including Kansas City, Chicago, Milwaukee, and Grand Rapids.

By Saturday, severe thunderstorms will move eastward, affecting portions of northern Indiana and eastern Michigan. As the system moves east, 1 to 2 inches of rain may fall, but isolated 3 to 5 inch rainfall is likely in certain places during the weekend.

Travel has already been affected by Friday morning’s storms, which have caused gridlock at airports and prompted caution on the roadways. According to Flightaware data, as of 8:30 a.m. ET, there have been over 280 flight cancellations and over 900 flight delays inside, to, or out of the United States.

Hard-hit Texas and New Mexico, where recovery efforts are in progress and soils are still saturated, may also face the possibility of flooding.

Over 100 people were murdered by catastrophic floods that struck central Texas over the Fourth of July weekend, and at least three people were killed by record flash floods that struck the isolated community of Ruidoso, New Mexico, this week.

During the hurricane, the Guadalupe River near Kerrville, Texas, rose more than 20 feet in 90 minutes, causing homes to be submerged and highways to be washed away. Burn scars from last year’s South Fork and Salt fires were inundated, and the Rio Ruidoso River in New Mexico rose eighteen feet in just thirty minutes.

These states will have a dry Friday, but during the weekend, thunderstorms will return, driven by a lot of precipitation from the Gulf.

Texas faces a modest risk of flooding on Saturday due to thunderstorms that are expected to bring significant rainfall to the Texas Hill Country. On Saturday, there is a chance of flooding from Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, to San Angelo and Kerrville, Texas.

Additionally, there is a chance of thunderstorms over New Mexico, especially the Ruidoso region. There is a higher chance of burn scar flooding into Sunday morning, but storms will be a little less common here.

The South is expected to see more storms and showers on Sunday.

Earlier this week, rain also flooded the East Coast, causing traffic jams, necessitating water rescues, and killing at least two people in North Carolina.

Two persons lost their lives in traffic-related events in North Carolina when automobiles were washed off the road by floods, according to the Alamance County sheriff’s office.

Over the past week, the United States has had at least four rainfall occurrences in Texas, New Mexico, North Carolina, and Illinois that occur once per 1,000 years.

“Any one of these intense rainfall events has a low chance of occurring in a given year… so to see events that are historic and record-breaking in multiple parts of the country over the course of one week is even more alarming,” said Kristina Dahl, vice president for science at the nonprofit organization Climate Central.

Heavy rainfall events are being fueled by the climate problem and global warming, according to scientists. Storms can drop massive volumes of rain over land because a warmer atmosphere can contain more water. According to studies, the atmosphere can contain between 3% and 4% extra moisture for every degree Fahrenheit as the earth warms.

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