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Hurricane Harvey Houston

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Hurricane Harvey produced record breaking rainfall throughout Houston and other regions. This is the third 500-year flood for Houston in the past three years. Climate scientist warn that extreme rainfall events will be more frequent in the future due to global warming.

Houston is familiar with flooding. But, Houston’s 1940 flood control network was not able to handle the extreme rainfall from Harvey. Harvey dumped record breaking rainfall, over 20 inches of rain across the entire Houston Metro area. Total rainfall for the storm hit over 50 inches and a new record for the U.S. As Houston begins to plan for recovery, climate scientists warn that urban planners need to prepare for more severe rainfall. “Surface waters in the Gulf of Mexico are 2 degrees Fahrenheit warmer at this time of year than they were three decades ago” (Wehner, 2017) and warmer temperatures create stronger storms. In addition, there is more …show more content…

After watching the devastating news on TV, I wanted to learn more about the ways we can control future flooding and understand why more powerful storms are becoming more frequent. I found the most interesting fact in the article to be that climate change is going to continue producing more violent storms. As the article states, society needs to prepare for more extreme rainfall and know that everyone is at risk. I would like to know some of the exact areas that need better flood prevention systems. After reading this article, I read another article in the New York Times entitled “As Climate Changes, Southern States Will Suffer More Than Others” (Plumer and Popovich, 2017). It explained in greater detail, that warmer areas like Texas will see a greater flooding impact from warming patterns. If I was in charge of the research, I would have included some of the New York Times data to provide greater detail on areas that are at greatest risk for epic

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