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The Dallas-Fort Worth area was pounded by thunderstorms Sunday night into Monday, dumping copious amounts of rain over the course of 18 hours, flooding homes and streets, and prompting some drivers to abandon their cars in high water. When her car was carried away in Dallas County, a 60-year-old woman was died .
According to preliminary damage assessments, Dallas County Judge Clay Jenkins has declared the area to be in a state of disaster, or declared , allowing it to utilize the state’s resources for response. Jenkins has also asked for help from the government.
Additionally, to help towns affected by the flooding, Governor Greg Abbott ordered the Texas Division of Emergency Management to raise the preparedness level of the state’s emergency operations center.
Rescue attempts have been sparked by the flash floods, which in some cases are thought to be life-threatening. Since Sunday at six o’clock in the evening, the Dallas Fire Department has responded as responded to hundreds of automobile accidents and other water-related emergencies. Dallas emergency management officials are warning locals not to go because of high water that has covered many roads.
For Central Texas through 7 p.m. and North Texas until 8 p.m. on Monday, the National Weather Service has issued an issued flood watch. The heaviest rains is moving into Central Texas while flooding in North Texas starts to subside.
According to Matthew Brady, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service Austin/San Antonio, Central Texas is seeing 2 to 4 inches of rain per hour, and if the severe rains continue through Monday evening, there could be significant flooding. After that, it’s anticipated that the cold front will head southward toward the Coastal Plains.
On Monday, there was more than 10 inches of rain in some areas of the Dallas-Fort Worth area. According to a Dallas Water Utilities reading, 15.1 inches of rain fell on the east side of Dallas in the previous 24 hours. According to current precipitation frequency estimates from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, rainfall amounts of at least 14.6 inches in East Dallas qualify as a 1-in-1,000-year flood, meaning that it has a 0.1% chance of occurring in any given year.
Estimates of Texas’ precipitation frequency were recently revised in 2018. NOAA releases updates as soon as it can secure money.
According to Victor Murphy, the National Weather Service program manager for the Southern region headquarters, as a result of climate change and global warming, we are experiencing more intense rain events that last for shorter periods of time. As a result, these events should likely be evaluated or reevaluated at regular intervals rather than as they are currently done haphazardly, whenever we can raise enough money.
According to John Nielson-Gammon, a climatology professor at Texas A
