Category: News

China’s national weather authority issued a heavy rain alert Sunday for portions of southern China, coming just one day after officials warned of mountain flood dangers in areas including Chongqing and Yunnan, with potential emergency evacuations ordered in the most at-risk locations.

The massive rain belt cuts diagonally across southern China, extending from the southwestern province of Yunnan all the way to the Yangtze River Delta along the country’s eastern coastline.

Train travel has also been affected — rail officials suspended certain passenger trains operating on the Shanghai–Kunming railway Sunday because of the heavy rainfall, according to state broadcaster CCTV.

In Yunnan, a number of popular tourist destinations, including the Tiger Leaping Gorge, were shut down temporarily after heavy rain pounded the area over the weekend.

The southwestern Guangxi region, which is still dealing with the aftermath of Typhoon Maysak earlier this month, is now facing another round of heavy rain expected to last through Tuesday.

Water levels in some rivers in Guangxi’s Baise area climbed between one and three metres — roughly three to nine feet — over the course of just 24 hours, CCTV reported Sunday.

Meanwhile, rescue crews are working urgently in Chongqing, where a rain-induced landslide struck a county in the southwest on Friday. Eight people have been confirmed dead, and searchers are still trying to locate 34 individuals who remain missing.

Fresh rainfall soaking Texas this week is bringing back heartbreaking memories for those who survived the catastrophic Hill Country floods that struck one year ago.

Lorena Guillen finds herself reflecting on that harrowing experience as the rain returns. She and her husband risked their lives attempting to rescue a family who had been caught in the floodwaters near their RV park during last year’s massive flooding event in the Hill Country region.

For survivors like Guillen, the sound and sight of heavy rain is a painful reminder of the destruction and loss that unfolded during the deadly 2025 floods — a disaster that left deep emotional scars that have yet to fully heal.

Less than a year after catastrophic flooding claimed more than 100 lives across Texas’ Hill Country, a fresh round of powerful storms unleashed devastating flash floods this week in many of the same communities — putting newly installed warning systems to the test for the first time.

At least two people lost their lives in the latest disaster, and hundreds of others had to be rescued from rising waters. But unlike the deadly floods of July 2025, many residents said they received timely warnings that gave them a chance to reach safety.

New flood sirens wailed in the middle of the night. Cell phones buzzed with emergency alerts that never came during last year’s disaster. For some, that made all the difference.

Still, the flooding exposed ongoing challenges. Some residents were caught completely off guard, underscoring how difficult it remains to build a reliable early warning network across a vast, rural stretch of Texas long known as Flash Flood Alley.

An Associated Press investigation following last summer’s floods — which killed 136 people, including 28 children at a sleepaway camp for girls — found that state and local agencies had missed multiple opportunities over the past decade to put flood warning systems in place along the Guadalupe River.

That reporting helped spark action. In Kerr County, local officials had acknowledged being hesitant to “cry wolf” during last year’s disaster and failed to send wireless emergency alerts. This time around, Kerr County issued four alerts and the city of Kerrville issued one early Thursday as flood conditions developed, according to an AP review of available data. Residents near Quinlan Creek were told to evacuate to higher ground and warned of “extremely dangerous” flash flooding. The National Weather Service also pushed out flood watches, warnings, and emergency messages through broadcast stations, weather radios, and mobile phones. Those who had signed up for Kerr County’s CodeRED notification system received text message warnings as well.

Kerrville resident Suzanne Sutphin Gschwind said the contrast with last year was striking. “Last year, we got no alarms. We had no idea what was going on,” she said. “This year, very different” — with texts and calls arriving from local authorities, a weather channel, and even her doorbell camera. On one night, alerts came in “about every two hours.” She added, “I think we would all like to err on the side of too much.”

Between early Tuesday morning and approximately 9 a.m. Thursday, the National Weather Service sent 38 alerts to residents in certain southwest Texas communities, including 14 tornado warnings and 24 flood warnings describing conditions as occurring or imminent and potentially “life threatening.”

However, those National Weather Service alerts often lack the highly specific local information that county and city emergency agencies can provide — and those local alerts can be more critical for people deciding whether to evacuate.

An AP review of wireless emergency alert data found no alerts listed as sent by agencies in Uvalde County, which was heavily impacted by flooding, though local agencies there may have used other methods to notify residents.

Jaclyn Gonzales was jolted awake at 2 a.m. Wednesday by a friend calling to warn about a possible tornado near her Uvalde-area home. When she got out of bed, the floor was already wet. “It was the shock of the water to my feet that made me really wake up,” she said.

Kat Sprawls, who lives in Batesville, only found out floodwaters were approaching after a friend called her at 3:30 a.m. Friday. It took five or six calls before she woke up — her phone had been set to do-not-disturb mode. “There’s no warning system at all. It’s just like the flood in Kerrville last year — we had no warnings,” Sprawls said. “Over half of Batesville is under water now.”

Jessica Belmarez, secretary of the Zavala County Sheriff’s Department, said the department was posting evacuation information on Facebook and that officers were going door-to-door in flooded areas, including Batesville.

State Sen. Paul Bettencourt, who authored legislation in 2025 to help fund flood sirens, said newly installed sirens in Ingram and in Kerr and Kendall counties were activated this week. He noted that 28 additional counties are eligible for flood warning funding and that most are working on implementation plans for review by the Texas Water Development Board. “Between the outdoor sirens, and the cellphone alerts, the response was very positive in getting people out of the way and to higher ground,” Bettencourt said. “It’s an enormous improvement over a year ago.”

Tara Bushnoe, manager of the Upper Guadalupe River Authority, said three of the six newly installed sirens in Kerr County were activated to alert people to seek higher ground. The remaining three were located in areas that experienced only minor flooding.

In the small town of Comfort, the volunteer fire department recently added two more sirens to the single one that had been in place for years. Assistant Fire Chief Danny Morales said some residents were reluctant to leave even after the sirens sounded. “Some people just don’t want to leave — that’s our problem here,” he said. “But we did set them off twice, probably an hour from one to another, just because we had people just lingering, and not wanting to move.”

Ian Cunningham launched a company called River Sentry following the 2025 floods, building siren towers for privately owned locations such as RV parks, camps, and hotels. The sirens are triggered automatically by rising water levels. The company has now installed 104 sirens along the Guadalupe River, Cunningham said, including several near the site of an RV park where more than three dozen people perished in 2025. “We installed them about three months ago and did not expect them to be used so soon,” he said.

A company called Hononu, which developed water-level sensor technology and a real-time data network, was awarded a state contract making it easier for agencies to purchase its flood warning technology. The fire-tracking app Watch Duty, used by millions of people, also expanded earlier this year to help monitor flood conditions.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott credited the lessons learned from 2025 with improving this year’s emergency response. “Everybody in Texas has been far more prepared to deal with what has happened this year,” Abbott said at a news conference in Uvalde. “Lives have been saved.”

At least four people lost their lives and four more remain missing after a fast-moving flash flood devastated a mountain village in Vietnam’s northern Lai Chau province, according to state media reports released Saturday.

The flood struck Muong Than village in the early morning hours of Friday, following several days of relentless heavy rain across multiple areas of northern Vietnam. Seven people were also reported injured in the disaster, according to the Vietnam News Agency.

Images published by the Vietnam News Agency showed thick red mud and floodwaters covering the village, with boulders and wooden logs heaped along a heavily damaged roadway.

Vietnam regularly faces deadly storms and flooding during its rainy season, which is most intense between July and September. Government figures show that natural disasters — the majority of them floods — claimed 489 lives across the country last year.

Since Wednesday, a combination of landslides and flash floods triggered by the ongoing heavy rainfall has caused widespread damage throughout the region. Roads, power infrastructure, and hundreds of homes have been affected, and approximately 238 hectares of crops have been submerged, according to the country’s disaster management agency.

Forecasters are warning that parts of northern Vietnam could receive rainfall totals reaching up to 250 millimeters on Saturday alone, raising the threat of additional flash floods and landslides in the coming hours.

Millions of Americans across the Great Lakes, Northeast, and Mid-Atlantic regions endured another difficult day of hazardous air Friday, as out-of-control wildfires sent a thick, eerie haze drifting over Washington, D.C. and surrounding areas.

Air quality alerts were set to remain in place through Saturday across a large portion of the country, though forecasters say weekend rainfall and thunderstorms could provide some temporary relief to affected communities.

Don’t expect the smoky skies to disappear quickly, however. Bob Oravec, a lead forecaster with the National Weather Service based in Maryland, warned that fires continue to burn unchecked across remote areas of Canada, with additional blazes in a Minnesota wilderness area adding to the problem.

“The source of the smoke is going to continue on for certainly a week, probably,” Oravec said. “So in some form, there’s going to be smoke that gets transported from the fires downstream, and it’s just going to depend upon which way the wind’s blowing as to where the smoke is going to affect the most.”

On Friday, communities in Minnesota, Michigan, and Illinois near the Canadian border and the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness in Minnesota recorded some of the worst air quality readings on the planet, according to IQAir, an air quality monitoring website.

Washington, D.C. was not far behind. The Washington Monument, Lincoln Memorial, and other iconic national landmarks were swallowed up in a dense, orange-tinted haze early Friday morning.

Stewart Verdery, a former assistant secretary at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, captured the scene in a sunrise panorama he posted on X. “Wow that Canadian smoke haze is no joke,” he wrote. “Almost nothing visible — no sun, no monuments, no Reagan Airport.”

Air quality in and around the nation’s capital was expected to deteriorate further throughout the day, potentially reaching “very unhealthy” and even “hazardous” levels on the air quality index, according to regional officials.

Health authorities urged residents — especially those with heart or lung conditions, older adults, and children — to stay indoors as much as possible until conditions improve.

There is also growing concern about how the poor air quality could affect the World Cup final match between Spain and Argentina at MetLife Stadium in New Jersey on Sunday. Oravec noted that while Saturday is expected to be rough, conditions should improve somewhat by game day.

Just one day earlier, skies over several states turned dark with an orange and yellow tinge, partially obscuring Manhattan’s skyline in a now-familiar haze.

Officials in New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and other Northeastern states handed out free KN95 face masks, scrapped outdoor events, and opened libraries and public buildings as indoor refuges from the polluted air.

By Friday afternoon, air quality readings had improved from “unhealthy” to “moderate” in parts of the New York City area. Bright sunshine broke through a thin layer of smoke, and stretches of clear blue sky returned to much of the region.

Saturday is forecast to bring a strong chance of thunderstorms across the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic, which should help clear the air temporarily. How long that improvement lasts depends largely on what happens far to the north, where roughly 100 wildfires continue to burn with no end in sight, primarily in Ontario, Canada. In the U.S., authorities have closed the Boundary Waters area while battling several fires there.

Health experts warn that prolonged exposure to smoky air can worsen existing medical conditions and lead to serious long-term health issues, including respiratory illness, cardiovascular and neurological disease, and even premature death.

The United States is grappling with three major weather emergencies at once — choking wildfire smoke blanketing the East Coast, devastating floodwaters surging through Texas for a third straight day, and new fires erupting overnight across the Pacific Northwest.

As of Friday, July 17, firefighters were battling 68 large wildfires burning across 15 states — a jump of nearly two dozen from the previous day. Seventeen new blazes ignited in the Pacific Northwest after a series of lightning strikes, making it the most active fire region in the nation, according to the National Interagency Fire Center.

The scale of the response is enormous: more than 17,400 personnel, 140 helicopters, and four military C-130 air tanker crews have been deployed across the country. The NIFC reports that record-low snowpack in the Mountain West and widespread drought have pushed fire conditions to levels typically not seen until mid-August.

So far this year, nearly 3.72 million acres — approximately 1.51 million hectares — have burned nationwide, surpassing last year’s mid-July total by more than one million acres.

Jesse Berman, a professor at the University of Minnesota School of Public Health who studies how extreme weather impacts human health, said disasters happening at the same time amplify the danger. “These are compound events, and that can sometimes make the impacts of them far worse than what we would experience with any one of these events individually,” Berman said.

University of Pennsylvania climatologist Michael Mann linked the simultaneous crises to a wave pattern in the jet stream called “resonance” — a phenomenon where large jet stream waves become amplified and locked in place, causing extreme weather to linger over a region for extended periods. Mann said his research shows that human-driven climate change has caused these stalled jet stream events to triple in frequency since the 1950s.

Hazy Skies Across the East

Smoke drifting south from Canadian wildfires has turned skies from Minneapolis to Washington, D.C. an orange-brown haze, pushing dangerous air quality conditions onto tens of millions of people across the Midwest, Northeast, and Mid-Atlantic regions.

On Friday, Chicago ranked as having the second-worst air quality of any city in the world, according to Swiss air quality technology company IQAir. Local officials responded by closing parks and beaches along Lake Michigan indefinitely and moving parks department activities indoors.

Those closures left few options for residents without air conditioning — about 4% of city households, according to the Civic Data Atlas. Temperatures in Chicago were expected to climb above 90 degrees Fahrenheit (32 degrees Celsius), with heat index values reaching up to 97 degrees, the National Weather Service said, prompting the city to activate its community cooling centers.

Earlier in the week, Detroit, Minneapolis, and Toronto were among the most polluted cities on the planet. A heat dome sitting over the Carolinas has been pushing northwesterly winds that funnel smoke from Minnesota and Canada into the nation’s most densely populated corridor. Rain expected over the weekend may offer some relief.

Texas Flooding Continues

In Texas, there was no relief in sight as the Hill Country suffered through a third consecutive day of severe flash flooding. More than 27 inches of rain have fallen in some parts of the region since Tuesday, according to the National Weather Service.

Governor Greg Abbott confirmed two deaths tied to this week’s flooding: a 65-year-old man who was swept away in his RV near the town of Comfort, and a 74-year-old man who drove into floodwaters in Uvalde County. Rescue crews have pulled hundreds of people from rising waters throughout the week.

The National Weather Service forecast that rainfall in Texas would begin tapering off Friday, with hot and dry conditions expected in the days ahead.

This week’s flooding comes just two weeks after the one-year anniversary of last July’s deadly Guadalupe River flood, which killed at least 135 people in many of the same communities now experiencing flooding again.

Parts of Texas remained in the crosshairs of dangerous flash flooding Friday, even as some of the hardest-hit communities began cleaning up after days of relentless rainfall that has been blamed for two deaths.

In the early morning hours, the National Weather Service declared a flash flood emergency for Sonora, a city in Sutton County located roughly 170 miles northwest of San Antonio. Local authorities used a boat to pull one person to safety, and officials were urging — though not requiring — residents in low-lying areas near the Dry Devils River to leave their homes as heavy rain continued to fall.

Chief Deputy Jon Gann described the dire situation along the riverbanks. “The water’s up to the top of the banks,” he said. “If we get any more, we’re going to be into homes.”

Flash flood warnings were also issued for multiple counties across the Texas Hill Country — a region still recovering from devastating floods just one year ago. Flood warnings were expected to remain in effect through the weekend in many downstream areas, and some rivers were forecast to hit historic levels, even as rainfall began to ease in some spots Friday.

Since the storms kicked off Tuesday, some areas west of San Antonio have received two feet of rain or more. Gov. Gregg Abbott said rescuers using boats and helicopters have saved more than 200 people, including drivers stranded on flooded roads and families trapped inside their homes. At the peak of concern, approximately 6 million Texas residents were under a flood watch.

The storms claimed two lives. One victim was driving on a flooded road near Uvalde when the vehicle was swept away. The second fatality was 65-year-old John Mark Steward of Kerrville, whose mobile home was carried into Goat Creek on the Guadalupe River, according to his wife. The Guadalupe River gained tragic notoriety last year when flash flooding killed more than two dozen children and counselors at Camp Mystic.

Meteorologists said the slow-moving storm system was expected to drift in a northwesterly direction Friday, eventually heading toward the Big Bend region in far west Texas.

In Uvalde, one of the cities most severely impacted by the flooding, water levels were dropping and officials announced that Route 90, a major highway, had reopened after floodwaters had cut off most routes in and out of the city overnight Wednesday into Thursday.

For many residents, the crisis stirred painful memories of last summer’s catastrophic Hill Country floods, which killed more than 100 people over the July Fourth holiday weekend.

“It’s crazy happening two times in one year,” said Josiah Rodriguez, a Kerrville resident who woke up around 2 a.m. Thursday to the sound of heavy rain and drove through flooded streets to help evacuate family members.

Rodriguez noted a significant difference between this year’s flooding and last year’s disaster. “Last year there was no warning of it,” he said. “It just kind of happened overnight and it took everyone by surprise. This year, a lot more alerts have gone into place, a lot more safety measures.”

Many residents said they were blindsided in 2024 when the Guadalupe River surged without adequate warning, and some local officials faced criticism for their slow response.

So far this year, the Guadalupe has stayed below the record-breaking levels seen in 2025. Near Camp Mystic — which has not reopened since last year’s tragedy — the river near Hunt reached approximately 20.5 feet, a level high enough to cause flooding, according to data from the U.S. Geological Survey and the National Water Prediction Service.

Residents across dozens of American cities are waking up to hazy, orange-tinted skies as wildfire smoke continues to drift across wide stretches of the United States.

The smoky conditions have triggered poor air quality alerts in multiple cities, raising health concerns for people who spend time outdoors. Officials are urging the public to stay inside as much as possible until conditions improve.

Relief may not come quickly — forecasters say the air quality situation is unlikely to get better until the weekend arrives.

PARIS — Two people have lost their lives after powerful thunderstorms tore through France overnight, bringing a deadly end to a prolonged period of extreme heat. By Friday, roughly 53,000 households were left without electricity, according to French media reports and grid operator Enedis.

In the central Haute-Vienne department, a woman died Thursday evening when a falling tree struck her in the town of Saint-Victurnien. Separately, in the eastern town of Dolomieu, a man was discovered burned to death late Thursday night inside a workshop that had caught fire after being struck by lightning, according to AFP.

Grid operator Enedis reported Friday that the power outages were concentrated primarily in two regions — the Auvergne Rhone-Alpes area in the southeast and Nouvelle Aquitaine in the southwest.

France’s national weather service, Météo-France, lifted an orange-level thunderstorm alert Friday for all southeastern departments that had previously been under the warning. Earlier, forecasters had cautioned residents about the threat of large hailstones and powerful wind gusts stretching from the Massif Central mountain range to the Alps.

A devastating flood emergency is unfolding across parts of Texas, where relentless rainfall has left at least two people dead and hundreds of others in need of rescue.

Several Texas communities have been overwhelmed by more than 20 inches of rain that has fallen since the start of the week, sending floodwaters surging through neighborhoods and trapping residents in their homes and vehicles.

Emergency responders have conducted hundreds of rescues as the floodwaters continue to pose serious dangers to those caught in the affected areas.

A thick, acrid haze from wildfires spread across a wide stretch of the United States on Thursday, dimming skies from the Great Lakes region eastward to parts of the East Coast.

The heavy smoke significantly reduced visibility in affected areas, and officials cautioned that outdoor air quality had reached levels that could be harmful to breathe.

The Associated Press compiled a photo gallery documenting the dramatic scenes as the smoky skies settled over the region.

Thick, foul-smelling wildfire smoke rolled across a broad stretch of the country on Thursday, stretching from the Great Lakes all the way to portions of the East Coast. The haze reduced visibility and triggered urgent warnings from officials telling people to avoid breathing outdoor air.

Across many cities, residents were told to remain indoors or wear protective masks if going outside was unavoidable. Air quality climbed to unhealthy and hazardous levels — conditions considered dangerous for everyone, not just those with pre-existing health concerns. The smoke originates primarily from wildfires burning in Canada, with additional fires in northern Minnesota also contributing. A stalled high pressure system has been pushing the smoke down toward ground level, according to Steven Freitag, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Detroit, where air quality ranked among the worst of any major city in the world.

“Sure enough, it arrived in force here and it’s really pretty extreme levels,” Freitag said, adding that visibility in certain spots had dropped to just half a mile.

Detroit resident Omar Mitchell, 50, had a mask on as he made his way to his restaurant, glancing up at the sky with concern. “It’s scary,” he said. “You don’t know necessarily what the side effects may be. That’s days or months later.”

Health experts warn that the tiny particles in wildfire smoke can penetrate deep into the lungs and enter the bloodstream, potentially causing heart and lung complications along with other serious long-term health consequences.

Sky turns yellow, air reeks across the region

The entire state of Michigan and large portions of Minnesota were placed under hazardous air quality alerts. In the Chicago metropolitan area, air quality fluctuated between very unhealthy and hazardous readings.

National Weather Service meteorologist Jake Petr cautioned that even if northwest winds help clear the air later in the week as forecast, smoky conditions could keep returning until the fires are fully extinguished — a process that could stretch on for months, possibly until snowfall arrives in Canada and northern Minnesota.

In downtown Chicago, 76-year-old Bill Ostrowski walked through streets shrouded in smoke, a mask covering his face. “It stinks. It’s not a good sign when you wake up in the morning and you can smell the air,” he said.

In St. Paul, Minnesota, Brent Williams, who heads the soil, water and climate department at the University of Minnesota, described the sky as “glowing yellow.” He said the region “could be looking at weeks to months of continued smoke and flare-ups off and on as the winds blow in different directions.”

A study released this year determined that prolonged exposure to fine particles from wildfire smoke was linked to an average of 24,100 deaths annually across the lower 48 states. Extended exposure can worsen existing medical conditions and lead to serious chronic illnesses, including respiratory disease, cardiovascular and neurological problems, and early death.

New York City hands out masks, cancels outdoor plans

Over the New York City area, a dense haze cast an orange and yellow tint across the morning sky, partially hiding Manhattan’s skyline from view.

City officials opened cooling centers, and health authorities asked New Yorkers to cut back on vigorous or lengthy outdoor activities. Schools, parks, and other city agencies moved programming indoors, postponed events, and adjusted how they operated. State officials handed out tens of thousands of face masks at transit hubs and other high-traffic locations.

Gwen Moseley, 65, was among the first to pick up a free mask at Rosedale Library in Queens. She spends much of her workday traveling as a therapist for children with autism. “Who wants to be breathing this? It’s not healthy,” she said while waiting for a young client. “When I’m out walking, I can feel the scratchiness in my throat.”

Weather service meteorologist Maureen Hastings said the smoke had eased somewhat but was expected to thicken again by late afternoon or evening, potentially lingering through the night. She indicated it might shift southward briefly on Friday before returning after dark.

The state Department of Environmental Conservation flagged the potential for temporary spikes of “very unhealthy” air quality stretching from Buffalo in the western part of the state to Rochester near Lake Ontario, then to Syracuse in the central region and down into the greater New York City area.

In Philadelphia, officials encouraged residents to avoid strenuous outdoor activity and to stay inside when possible, or wear N95 or KN95 masks if heading out. “Today is not the day to start your marathon training plan,” said Dr. Palak Raval-Nelson, the city’s public health commissioner.

Minnesota wildfires continue to spread

In Minnesota, forest rangers spent Thursday searching a remote wilderness area to locate anyone who might still be present, days after wildfires forced officials to close the region.

The Boundary Waters area along the U.S.-Canada border was shut down on Tuesday. Between 6,000 and 10,000 people were believed to be inside at the time of the closure, though Superior National Forest staff estimated by Wednesday that they had made contact with approximately 90 percent of them, according to Karen Harrison, a spokesperson for the state and federal agencies coordinating the response.

Harrison said Thursday that heavy smoke has grounded helicopters and that the fires are continuing to spread despite active firefighting efforts. “There will be fire on the landscape until fall, and some fire will be burning until snow cover,” she said.

In a separate development, the Royal Canadian Air Force successfully evacuated 11 Minnesota teenagers and four staff members on Wednesday from wildfires burning in an Ontario provincial park located roughly 175 miles north of the Minnesota border.

UVALDE, Texas — Days of heavy rainfall have triggered catastrophic flooding across parts of Texas, overwhelming communities and forcing emergency teams into round-the-clock rescue operations.

Homes and roads have been swallowed by rising floodwaters, with hundreds of people requiring rescue as conditions continue to deteriorate. Emergency responders have been stretched to their limits as they work to reach those trapped or endangered by the ongoing disaster.

The flooding remains an active threat, with communities across the affected region bracing for further danger as floodwaters persist.

Before the sun came up Thursday morning in Texas, the Guadalupe River surged to heights matching a two-story building — and it did so in just five hours — sending a wall of water crashing through a region that is still recovering from last summer’s deadly flash floods.

For the second year in a row, severe flooding has triggered dozens of high-water rescues, washed out roads, and claimed at least one life, according to authorities. Days of nonstop heavy rain have served as yet another terrifying reminder of just how dangerous the flood-prone Texas Hill Country can be. Experts say this latest event was fueled by a combination of atmospheric conditions and an abundance of available moisture in the air.

“Last year, it was one big wave that came through. And it wiped everything out, and then it receded, and then we could deal with the damage. This time, we’re on day three of heavy rain and everything keeps continuing to rise, and it’s expected to rain today and tonight,” said Suzanne Sutphin Gschwind of Kerrville, one of the communities hit hardest by the flooding.

A mass of hot air sitting over the center of the continental United States caused storm systems to stall and move very slowly, allowing round after round of rain to fall — sometimes at a rate of several inches per hour over roughly the past three days. Bob Oravec, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service, described the flooding as being “about as bad as it gets,” calling these kinds of conditions typically rare.

“Obviously, something like this doesn’t occur every year, but it has occurred over two years in a row and it has occurred over a region that is prone to flash flooding by its topography,” Oravec said.

Over those three days, nearly 1 trillion gallons of rain fell across the three counties hit hardest in Texas. According to Ryan Maue, former chief scientist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association, Uvalde County alone received more rainfall during that stretch than the entire state of California has seen over the past month.

The flooding that struck over the Fourth of July weekend last year killed more than 100 people, including approximately two dozen children and camp counselors at Camp Mystic, a now-closed Christian summer camp for girls. This week’s storms dropped rain across an even broader area, overlapping with many of the same locations where floodwaters overturned vehicles, tore down trees, and forced rescuers into emergency action last July.

A local official in Travis County, which encompasses Austin, reported that residents were stranded on barn rooftops and in trees. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott confirmed that drones and helicopters had been deployed to carry out rescues.

“We are looking at every square inch of the entire area for anybody who may be stranded anywhere. And there will be help coming very rapidly to whoever may be displaced, wherever they are,” Abbott said.

The storms hit the Texas Hill Country, a region of central and south Texas defined by steep, rugged terrain. Thin layers of soil sit on top of limestone hills that have been saturated for days. Rather than soaking into the ground, rainwater rushes directly into rivers with steep banks, causing water levels to spike dangerously fast — a scenario that can catch people completely off guard.

Tyler Roys, a senior meteorologist with the forecasting company AccuWeather, said that when rivers rise that quickly, “it’s almost like a river tsunami.” He noted that these situations are so deadly because water is both extremely heavy and fast-moving. A single cubic foot of water — roughly the size of a box slightly larger than a basketball — weighs about 62 pounds, or 28 kilograms.

Texas State Climatologist John Nielsen-Gammon noted that while this week’s flooding is serious, the rain has fallen somewhat less intensely than last year’s event in many locations, and rivers have generally not risen quite as rapidly.

“This one is producing greater overall precipitation totals, but it is mostly doing it with lower rain rates. They are still fairly high, but they aren’t as high as they were last year,” he said.

Although the Guadalupe River is running very high, its levels have mostly stayed below the record marks set during last year’s deadly floods — with one notable exception. At the small community of Comfort, the river climbed to 37 feet, or 11.3 meters, early Thursday morning. That is 1.5 feet, or about half a meter, higher than it reached at the same location last year. At its peak last year, water equivalent in weight to the Empire State Building was flowing downstream roughly every minute. The all-time record at that location stands at 42.3 feet, or 12.9 meters, set back in 1869.

Scientists say it is difficult to directly link any single storm to climate change, especially while events are still unfolding. Oravec noted that the atmospheric conditions responsible for this storm — hot air that slows and steers storm systems — have existed for a long time, but that climate change could make those conditions more frequent. A warmer atmosphere is also capable of holding more moisture, which can lead to heavier rainfall.

Last year’s deadly floods did increase public awareness of the dangers that flash floods pose, particularly when they strike at night, Oravec said.

“I think overall it has been a good forecast. The effects are catastrophic, but the signal was there for potential heavy rainfall,” he said.

Two people are dead in Texas after being swept away in their vehicles by floodwaters, and state officials are warning that the worst may still be ahead. Texas Governor Greg Abbott announced Thursday afternoon that the state is preparing for what he called “record-shattering” rainfall expected over the following 24 hours.

Emergency crews have already carried out 230 rescues across the affected areas, including a dramatic operation in which a man and his dog were lifted from a submerged truck using a helicopter and a rescue swimmer, according to Abbott.

The state has mobilized 2,350 emergency responders along with 1,400 pieces of equipment — among them Black Hawk helicopters and swiftwater rescue boats. Officials are determined to avoid a repeat of last year’s tragedy, when flooding in the same Texas Hill Country region killed at least 135 people, including 27 campers and counselors — most of them children — at a summer camp.

“We’re facing record-shattering rainfall that leads to very dangerous flooding. We want to do everything we possibly can to protect our lives,” Abbott told reporters following a briefing, standing alongside emergency response officials.

The National Weather Service reported that 10 to 20 inches of rain — roughly 25 to 50 centimeters — had already fallen across parts of the Hill Country over the previous two days. That region includes Camp Mystic, a Christian summer camp for girls located along the Guadalupe River, which was the site of last year’s deadly disaster.

Abbott identified the two victims as a man who was swept away while in his recreational vehicle and a woman whose vehicle was overtaken by rising floodwaters.

The governor urged residents to stay off the roads until the storms pass, which is expected sometime late Friday. Across the state, 125 roadway sections have been impacted, with 87 of them closed — including a bridge that was struck by a barge.

Uvalde and Johnson City were highlighted as areas of particular concern. The Nueces River near Uvalde was forecast to surpass its record crest set in 1996, while the Frio and Pedernales rivers were expected to reach some of their highest levels ever recorded.