WATCH: At least 37 people have died and entire neighbourhoods have been wiped out in the past week of flooding in Texas and Oklahoma. Jackson Proskow reports.
TORONTO – It has been a downpour of almost Biblical proportions. For the past week, residents of Texas and parts of Oklahoma have been battling a deluge of rain with no end in sight.
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“It’s been a very persistent and unusually deep trough of low pressure that’s set up over southern California for the past three weeks or so,” said Victor Murphy, climate service program manager for the National Weather Service, southern region headquarters. “So that’s bringing us a very moist, southwest flow aloft…on the east side is the wet side.”
On top of that a ridge of high pressure has set up in the southeast of the U.S., and that’s pumping in moisture from the Gulf northward into Texas.
Those two things — unusual and persistent — are making the region vulnerable to other variables such as low pressure systems, which trigger unsettled weather including thunderstorms and heavy rain.
And just how bad has it been?
Dallas-Fort Worth has received 406 mm of rain, Houston, 345 mm, Gainesville more than 711 mm. In Wichita Falls, which received 427 mm of rain, it broke a record for the wettest month ever, set in 1897.
And Oklahoma doesn’t get off any easier: Oklahoma City has received 383 mm, Tulsa, 330 mm and Norman 584 mm.
“It’s unprecedented,” Murphy said. “We’ve never had rainfall of this magnitude over such a long period of time.”
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Seven cities across the two states have recorded their wettest month ever. This is also in a state that is coming off its second-worst drought in history. In fact, a week ago, the Lake Arrowhead reservoir in north Texas was just 20 per cent full and had been that way for a year. But in one week it went from 20 per cent full to 81.1 per cent. Now it’s 100 per cent full.
“I cannot possibly think of a bigger turnaround,” Murphy said. “To go from the worst drought on record…and one month later you’re totally out of drought, you’ve had your wettest month on record and your reservoirs are overflowing.”
“The drought’s over. Absolutely.”
The wet weather is expected to continue into the weekend, with about an inch to two inches of rain to fall.
But the good news is, as of Sunday, the pattern is expected to shift, ending the deluge. And it’s expected to continue into the week.
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