Higher temperatures are creating droughts, pushing moisture into the atmosphere which then gets released as extreme precipitation or snowfall elsewhere.
Downpours and more intense hurricanes, exacerbated by climate change, are contributing factors to a growing number of communities finding themselves underwater. Drought also exacerbates flooding, as the soil cannot easily absorb stormwater. Floods have become the most common (and among the most deadly) natural disasters in the United States. And the flooding is not just coastal. Inland flooding is also on the rise as extreme storms cause rivers to jump their banks, city streets to flood when runoff has nowhere to go, and flash floods follow catastrophic wildfires with rains triggering runaway surges of mud and debris.
2019 saw much of the country experience record-breaking rain with five Midwestern states recording the wettest year in 125 years according to NOAA. Flooding affected nearly 14 million people across the Midwest and Southwest, Houston was swamped by the second 500-year flood in two years, dumping over 40 inches of rain within 72 hours, and DC flash floods saw a month’s rain in only one hour.
Farmers and agriculture workers are hit particularly hard as crops have been destroyed, fields washed away, and spring planting disrupted for many farmers. Insufficient flood protection has left infrastructure destroyed with one farmer commenting, “I drove my Chevy to the levee but the levee was…gone.”
By 2023, 164 of the 399 disasters tracked by the Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters were floods. These floods killed 7,763 people, affected more than 30 million people, and caused $20.4 million USD in losses.
In August 2024, catastrophic flooding occurred in the Northeast U.S., especially affecting Connecticut and Long Island, New York. This was just one of three other extreme rainfall events in the Northeast producing 1-in-200 year rainfall.
By the end of September, Hurricane Helene had delivered 40 trillion gallons of rainfall to the southeast, leading to deadly flooding and landslides across the southern Appalachians. That amount of rainfall is enough to fill the Dallas Cowboys stadium 51,300 times, fill more than 60 million Olympic swimming pools and cover the entire state of North Carolina in 3.5 feet of water. Scientists say Helene’s devastating rainfall was likely intensified by climate change, calling the storm a “climate wake-up call.”
2025 has seen record-breaking rainfall and flooding across the U.S. Major flood events occurred in April in Kentucky, July in the Northeast (especially New Jersey and New York) Texas (135 deaths) and Chicago, and early October in Alaska (hundreds of homes destroyed) and Arizona, leading to widespread damage and fatalities. Factors contributing to these events include increased atmospheric moisture, a slower-moving jet stream, and saturated ground conditions.
The number of 2025 flash flood warnings through July 2025 from the National Weather Service is double the annual average.
Heavy precipitation events are becoming more frequent and intense.
CREDIT: NCA5
