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Mike and Gay Sullivan currently live in an RV that they borrowed from their son as they work on rebuilding their home in Wimberley, Texas.(Photo: Joel Salcido for USA TODAY)
WIMBERLEY, Texas<span style="color: Red;">*</span>— Deadly flooding in the<span style="color: Red;">*</span>Hill Country. A withering flash drought across Texas. Wildfires near Bastrop. Record rainfall and more flooding in Central Texas.
Texas has been hit by wildly-fluctuating weather<span style="color: Red;">*</span>this year<span style="color: Red;">*</span>that has destroyed homes, ruined thousands of acres of crops and led to more than a dozen deaths.
Weather patterns influenced by El Niño jammed the jet stream in a holding pattern over Texas, causing much of the extreme<span style="color: Red;">*</span>weather, meteorologists said. Climatologists are studying the patterns to determine if the weather swings are<span style="color: Red;">*</span>one-off occurrences or signs of a "new normal"<span style="color: Red;">*</span>brought on by climate change.
Some residents in this beleaguered city, where severe flooding from the Blanco River in May killed 12 people and destroyed more than 70 homes and businesses, aren’t taking any chances.
Mike and Gay Sullivan are rebuilding their two-story home on the river’s north bank with hurricane straps, steel beams and a metal porch to keep it and themselves from being washed away in another flood. A few years ago, they also installed a metal roof to protect against wildfire embers.
The couple survived the May floods, only to be hit with a three-month-long drought, followed by more heavy rains last month that swelled the Blanco River to within a foot of their home.
The rains caused the Blanco River to rise 12 feet every half hour and reach a record 44 feet high before the river gauge ripped away in the current.<span style="color: Red;">*</span>(Photo: Joel Salcido for USA TODAY)
“It’s the new normal,” Gay Sullivan, 76, said. “Things are changing and they’re changing drastically. You need to make adjustments and try to prepare for them.”
The question climatologists are now wrestling with is whether<span style="color: Red;">*</span>more of these weather swings will occur<span style="color: Red;">*</span>with the warming of the planet and climate change.<span style="color: Red;">*</span>The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)<span style="color: Red;">*</span>confirms<span style="color: Red;">*</span>in multiple studies that a warming world will<span style="color: Red;">*</span>intensify extreme precipitation events and their frequency — not just in the U.S., but all around the world.
Intense swings from drought to flooding have been recorded a few times since the 1950s, said<span style="color: Red;">*</span>Steve Bowen of Aon Benfield,<span style="color: Red;">*</span>a London-based global reinsurance firm.<span style="color: Red;">*</span>Since 2000, there have been at least two other times in which a heavy rain event quickly alleviated<span style="color: Red;">*</span>drought conditions,<span style="color: Red;">*</span>he said.
"The question now becomes whether we should expect to see the frequency of these rapid shifts from drought to flood increase as a result of climate change," Bowen said.
In Texas, a<span style="color: Red;">*</span>key culprit in the crazy weather was<span style="color: Red;">*</span>El Niño, a periodic warming of tropical Pacific Ocean water that affects weather around the world, said Matt Lanza,<span style="color: Red;">*</span>an energy industry meteorologist in Houston.
"El Nino's fingerprints are all over this," Lanza<span style="color: Red;">*</span>said. "Typically, strong El Niño<span style="color: Red;">*</span>springs in Texas are wet, summers are dry, and autumns slowly transition back to wet again. This year has obviously been extreme in a huge way.”
Texas’ wild weather year began in May with a steady deluge that dropped 9.05<span style="color: Red;">*</span>inches of rain statewide, making May the wettest single month since records began in 1895 and shattering<span style="color: Red;">*</span>the previous record of 6.66 inches from June 2004, according to the National Centers for Environmental Information.
The rains caused the Blanco River to rise 12 feet every half hour and reach a record 44 feet high before the river gauge ripped away in the current. The wall of<span style="color: Red;">*</span>water demolished homes and swept away families.
The deadly<span style="color: Red;">*</span>deluge was followed by a “flash drought” that left Texas tinder-dry and made conditions vulnerable for wildfires. In October, a fire near Bastrop, about 50 miles east of Austin, consumed more than 4,500 acres and destroyed 40 homes and buildings before firefighters<span style="color: Red;">*</span>put it out.
A few weeks later, more heavy rain<span style="color: Red;">*</span>pounded Central Texas, triggering tornadoes and causing flooding in some areas. At least six deaths were attributed to those storms. The Oct. 22–26 rain<span style="color: Red;">*</span>event was the wettest storm ever in Texas, Texas State climatologist John Nielsen-Gammon said in a statement. The average two-day total across Texas was 2.42 inches, ousting the previous record of 2.14 inches set in December 1991, he said.
Besides being destructive to homes and dangerous to people, the whiplash weather has been hard on crops. Texas cotton growers<span style="color: Red;">*</span>initially welcomed the May rains after slowly emerging from a withering, multi-year drought, said Gaylon Morgan, a cotton agronomist at the Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service.
But that enthusiasm<span style="color: Red;">*</span>faded quickly as the rains persisted through planting season. Around 700,000 acres of Texas cotton weren’t planted due to the prolonged deluges, he said. Then the rains stopped and didn’t return for two months, withering thousands of more acres.
“It went from excessively wet to excessively dry,” Morgan said. “Plants just can’t adapt that quickly.”
Ben Oakley, director of the North Blanco County EMS, had barely gotten over the devastating May floods that ruined homes and killed three people in his area, when calls came into<span style="color: Red;">*</span>his radio warning of nearby wildfires. Flood debris piled next to homes had dried out during the dry months following the floods and emergency officials worried that a stray wildfire ember could spark a deadly fire through their community, he said.
That threat passed just in time for the heavy October rains to emerge and reignite flood fears.
“We’ve had years with heavy rains and we’ve had years with wildfires,” Oakley said. “But I can’t remember a time when we’ve had them all the same year.”
The May 25, 2015, floods along the Blanco River left a path of destruction after waters levels reached a record 44 feet at some points along the river.<span style="color: Red;">*</span>(Photo: Joel Salcido for USA TODAY)
In Wimberley, city officials are preparing for the next weather threat by installing emergency sirens throughout town and raising funds to install more gauges in the Blanco River.
For the Sullivans, a love of the river and idyllic hill country living outweighs the risks posed by their riverfront home. They’ve committed to rebuild, even though floods washed away six neighbors’ homes on their street<span style="color: Red;">*</span>and left the couple<span style="color: Red;">*</span>about $50,000 short on rebuilding funds.
Just the same, each time the newscast<span style="color: Red;">*</span>warns of heavy rains and potential flooding, they retreat to a friend’s barn up the hill.
“Nothing is normal anymore,” Gay Sullivan said. “It just doesn’t feel right.”
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