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Houses and cars are partially submerged in flood waters in an aerial view near Kerrville, Texas, near where the all-girls Camp Mystic was engulfed. Coast Guard\/Handout via REUTERS<\/p>\n
The deluge that surged through Central Texas over the Fourth of July weekend devastated the hill country and shocked the world with its intensity and loss of life.<\/p>\n
The Guadalupe River at Kerrville rose from 1.73 feet to 34.29 feet<\/a> in three hours on July 4, according to a river gauge maintained by the federal government.\u00a0<\/p>\n The floodwaters have killed at least 108 people<\/a>, including 27 campers and counselors from the all-girls Camp Mystic near Kerrville, with five campers and one counselor still missing.<\/p>\n \u201cThe rainfall rate was extremely high, in some places reaching more than four inches per hour,\u201d says Samuel Munoz<\/a>, an associate professor of marine and environmental sciences at Northeastern University.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen the rainfall is that intense, the ground cannot absorb the water, so water flows quickly to streams and rivers,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n As extraordinary as it is to have months\u2019 worth of rainfall in hours, scientists say to expect more flash flooding in the future as warmer water and air temperatures lead to increased precipitation from hurricanes and other storms.<\/p>\n What happened in \u2018flash flood alley\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\n The hill country in Central Texas where the Guadalupe River overflowed its banks is known as \u201cflash flood alley\u201d due to its susceptibility to flooding.<\/p>\n One factor is the area\u2019s soil, which is hard-packed, dry and shallow with little organic matter, says Peter \u201cJames\u201d Dennedy-Frank<\/a>, Northeastern assistant professor of civil and environmental engineering with an expertise in hydrology.<\/p>\n What happens when it rains is known as \u201cinfiltration of excess overland flow,\u201d he says.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThe idea is that the soil can\u2019t soak up the water as fast as it\u2019s coming in. The water runs off really fast into the river channels. So you can have these floods that come up in an hour or two,\u201d Dennedy-Frank says. \u201cDuring intense storms, you have a lot of surface runoff happening really fast.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThe rate of rise on this was really amazing,\u201d Dennedy-Frank says, adding that he had never before witnessed waters rise 30 feet in three hours or 20 feet in an hour.<\/p>\n In addition to the intensity of the rainfall, the location \u2014 on both branches of the Guadalupe River \u2014 supercharged the flooding, he says. \u201cWe\u2019re getting all that accumulation from the whole watershed area rather than just a portion of the watershed area,\u201d he adds.<\/p>\n Further setting the stage for tragedy was the timing, when the area teemed with recreational campers celebrating the July 4 weekend.<\/p>\n How AI can make better predictions<\/strong><\/p>\n Although the National Weather Service issued flood warnings<\/a> the night of July 3 and the morning of July 4, the rapid intensification of the flash flood caught officials by surprise.<\/p>\n \u201cWe need to drastically improve the current methods (of forecasting). We\u2019re just not very good at predicting these very heavy storms,\u201d says Auroop Ganguly<\/a>, Northeastern distinguished professor of civil and environmental engineering.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cI would say they seem to have reached their limit,\u201d he says. \u201cThere are not enough advanced warning systems. There are not enough meteorological or hydrometeorological indicators.\u201d<\/p>\n Take a look at the Waverly flood that swamped part of Tennessee in 2021, he says. Meteorologists predicted 2 to 3 inches of rain, but 21 inches fell that day in August, killing 20 people.<\/p>\n In the wake of that disaster, Ganguly\u2019s Ph.D. student Puja Das received a grant from NASA to work with the Tennessee Valley Authority on better forecasting models. She developed the idea of a hybrid model that incorporates traditional physics with data generated by artificial intelligence.<\/p>\n \u201cOne thing AI can do is take a look at large data sets that we did not have before and try to find patterns from those data,\u201d Ganguly says.<\/p>\n Traditional physics models rely to some extent on estimates called parameterizations, which Ganguly calls \u201cinspired guesses.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Using information learned from a huge amount of data in space and time, combined with a bit of physics, may be more effective in predicting the kind of short-term, intense rainfalls that produce flash floods, he says.<\/p>\n