A stalled car sits with foliage in its grill from the flooded road at Military Parkway Interstate 635 on Monday, Aug. 22, 2022, in Mesquite, Texas. The National Weather Service issued a flash flood warning early Monday morning which was extended until 1 p.m.
China’s Yangtze River is drying up, a year after deadly flooding. China is baking under what is a record-long heat wave, already into its third month, with a preliminary report of an overnight low temperature only dipping down to 94.8 degrees in the heavily populated city of Chongqing. And in western China flooding from a sudden downpour has killed more than a dozen people.
Stalled cars sit abandoned on the flooded Interstate 635 Service Road on Monday, Aug. 22, 2022, in Mesquite, Texas. The National Weather Service issued a flash flood warning early Monday morning which was extended until 1 p.m. Weather whiplash, “where all of a sudden it changes to the opposite’' extreme, is becoming more noticeable because it’s so strange, said climate scientist Jennifer Francis of the Woodwell Climate Research Center in Falmouth, Massachusetts. She is in the middle of a study of whiplash events.
Think of the air as a giant sponge, said UCLA and Nature Conservancy climate scientist Daniel Swain. It soaks up more water from parched ground like a sponge “which is why we’re seeing worse droughts in some places,” he said. Then when a weather system travels further, juicy with that extra water, it has more to dump, causing downpours.
Mars called to remind us it is still jealous of our trees. ;)