Publication Date June 1, 2016 | WxShift

Record Flooding Continues to Mess with Texas

United States
Last 30 days of rain, ending June 1. Image: NOAA
Last 30 days of rain, ending June 1. Image: NOAA

The big driver for this week’s round of rain has been a meandering area of low pressure in the upper atmosphere. This area of low pressure is cut off from the main jet stream flow, which has made its seasonal retreat northward toward the U.S.-Canada border. This leaves little movement in the atmosphere to push the system along, allowing it to repeatedly pour heavy rain as it draws in moisture from the western Gulf of Mexico...

The Brazos River watershed collects water from Fort Worth to Austin before spilling into the Gulf of Mexico just south of Houston. Areas between Austin and Houston have gotten more the 20 inches of rain since the start of May, which is about four times the normal amount. Further upriver, just southeast of Fort Worth, more than a foot of rain has fallen in May, more than twice the normal amount