Publication Date October 26, 2015 | Slate

Remnants of Hurricane Patricia Spawn Texas-Sized Flood

United States
Spectators brave the rain to watch the qualifying session ahead of the the U.S. Formula One Grand Prix at the Circuit of the Americas in Austin, Texas, on Oct. 25, 2015. Photo by Jewel Samad/AFP/Getty Images
Spectators brave the rain to watch the qualifying session ahead of the the U.S. Formula One Grand Prix at the Circuit of the Americas in Austin, Texas, on Oct. 25, 2015. Photo by Jewel Samad/AFP/Getty Images

Patricia swiftly disintegrated after initial landfall for much the same reason that the swirl in your morning coffee chaotically comes to a rest once you stop quickly spinning the spoon—Patricia’s core vortex was disturbed by Mexico’s rugged landscape...[I]t’s perfectly normal for an intense hurricane like Patricia to quickly weaken after landfall—especially if it plows headlong into a mountain range—and, as I wrote on Friday, there are several reasons to expect extreme hurricanes like Patricia more frequently over the coming decades as the planet warms.