The main purpose of this ongoing blog will be to track planetary extreme, or record temperatures related to climate change. Any reports I see of ETs will be listed below the main topic of the day. I’ll refer to extreme or record temperatures as ETs (not extraterrestrials).😜
Here is a new feature for this blog, which I will add daily. This is the latest inciteful Green News Report from my friends Desi Doyen and Brad Friedman at Progressive Voices. Hit ‘continue reading,’ listen, then hit return to see my daily topics:
Main Topic: Update on Texas Catastrophic Flooding
Dear Diary. As promised, I have an update on severe Texas flooding. The situation in the south Texas Hill Country has continued to get worse over the last 48 hours since my first report:
The system bringing floods to Texas has unfortunately remained in place since Monday and will be stubborn to warm and dissipate over the weekend, so more south Texas flooding can be expected:
Here are more details from the Washington Post:
More than 75 people rescued, 1 killed as rain deluges areas of Texas – The Washington Post
Hundreds rescued, 2 killed as flooding sweeps through parts of Texas
Flooding was ongoing in the same region that experienced a deadly event in July 2025.
July 16, 2026 at 10:10 p.m. EDT
Flooding along the Guadalupe River on Thursday in Kerrville, Texas. (Joel Angel Juarez/AP)
AI Overview
Texas Hill Country was experiencing a flash flood emergency as of Thursday evening, with heavy rains forcing water rescues and causing structural damage. Earlier, the National Weather Service warned of a “particularly dangerous situation” in Uvalde and Knippa, where 10 to 20 inches of rain had fallen. Waters were forecast to reach levels similar to those during last July’s deadly floods.
- Comparisons to last year’s catastrophic flooding in the same region.
- Details of the high risk of excessive rainfall continuing into Friday.
AISummary is AI-generated, newsroom-reviewed.
By Molly Hennessy-Fiske, Stella Canino-Quiñones, Ben Noll and Matthew Cappucci
Relentless rains were lashing Texas Hill Country on Thursday, with flash flood emergencies reported across the region, rescues ongoing and waters rising to deadly levels.
Two people died as the region flooded, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott said in a Thursday news conference. More than 200 people had been rescued, he said. A spokesperson for the governor said late Thursday the two fatalities were a 74-year-old man in Uvalde, and a man about 65 years old in Center Point. Abbott earlier said the deceased individual in Uvalde was a woman.
Abbott said Thursday that 2,350 emergency responders had been deployed. More than 1,400 vehicles, more than 200 high-profile vehicles, 85 boats and 21 aircraft had been deployed as well. In a briefing one day earlier, he noted disaster declarations had been issued in 59 counties; 59 counties were also under flood watches.
“We are dealing with and responding to a flood that is likely going to break records in Texas history,” Abbott said in a Wednesday night news conference. “Our primary focus right now and throughout the remainder of this torrential rain is saving lives.”
The expected rainfall from this storm is 30 inches, exceeding the total during last year’s deadly floods by more than 10 inches. Both Uvalde and Kerrville had been under flash flood emergencies early Thursday, with rainfall totals in the 15-to-20-inch range expected there.
Uvalde and Johnson City are the most at risk in the next 24 hours, Abbott said.
“Uvalde is getting it from all sides.”
A flood-damaged car hangs from a fence in Boerne, Texas. (AP)
Following extremely intense rain and thunderstorms on Thursday morning, there may be a lull Thursday afternoon, followed by increasing flood risks again Thursday night into Friday.
Farther north, another flash flood emergency was occurring along the Guadalupe River southeast of Kerrville.
The region was hit hard by heavy rain beginning Wednesday, with reports of evacuations, water rescues and vehicles that were swept away. Some of the heavy rains and floodwaters hitting the region this week were also affecting areas where rising waters proved catastrophic last July.
That month, floods swept through Texas Hill Country, claiming the lives of at least 137 people, 28 of whom were killed when waters rushed through Camp Mystic, a camp along the Guadalupe River.
Razor Dobbs, of the Center Point Volunteer Fire Department, said he and fellow firefighters had been doing water rescues with two boats and amphibious machines all morning: first in Kerrville, then south along the Guadalupe where it flows through their small town.
“Our whole department is different from last year, so we’ve been doing amazing things. I haven’t heard of any fatalities or people missing, but there have been a bunch of crazy rescues: people stuck up in trees, on top of their houses. Our whole fire station was flooded again,” said Dobbs, who also responded to the flood last year with the department’s roughly 15 volunteers.
“In some places it’s higher than last year. At our station we were ready — we’ve been manning the station the last two nights, and our swift-water rescue team has quadrupled since last year. We have a lot more resources for water rescue, and we have a lot more people who came out and joined and trained.”
This year, Dobbs said first responders also had more time to prepare compared with last year’s catastrophic floods, when they recovered flood victims’ bodies along the river, including on his family ranch.
“We’ve been expecting a flood could happen because everything has been so saturated. Last year was a surprise,” he said, and late Thursday morning they were still responding.
“We’re expecting another rise. We’ve been going back to places we evacuated to make sure no one went back,” Dobbs said as he tried to drive a fire truck around town, bypassing flooded streets.
“You’re just trying to get people out hoping you won’t get swept away. There have been lots of vehicles swept away.”
At the Kerr County emergency operations center in Kerrville — the same county barn emergency managers used last year — state Rep. Wes Virdell said local and state officials were still coordinating the response Thursday afternoon.
“One fatality that we know of; there might be some missing people. River’s coming down right now, but they’re worried it might come back up this afternoon,” Virdell said.
Last year’s flood stripped towering cypresses and other vegetation from the river, Virdell noted, so now “the water is moving really fast — there’s almost no resistance.”
The storm passed over Kerrville, he said, leaving much of Uvalde and Leakey to the north still stranded Thursday afternoon with roads washed out or damaged, including Garner State Park, a popular camping and tubing spot along the Frio River.
But Virdell said residents had more warning this year and took precautions.
“I think that’s why we’re seeing so few casualties: evacuations, and they had two days of watching it happen all around,” Virdell said. “Last year people went to bed and there wasn’t a high probability of concern. They woke up to a wall of water coming down the river. This time, they’ve had floods going on in counties around them in recent weeks. So they weren’t caught off guard so much. But the water was just as high or even higher, especially down in the Center Point area.”
In Uvalde, state Rep. Don McLaughlin — who served as mayor for nearly a decade — said emergency managers he met with late Thursday were still coping with multiple flooded rivers.
At least 335 people had evacuated to shelters at Uvalde County Fairplex, Southwest Texas College and a local elementary school, he said. Hundreds of homes in town have flooded, he said, mainly due to the Leona River rising.
They built dams there to keep this from happening years ago, but it filled the dams and spilled over,” McLaughlin said of recent rains. “The ground is saturated, and it just keeps coming.”
All major highways through Uvalde were either flooded or washed out, he said, cutting off the town and even the east and west sides: “Basically, we’re two islands.”
“It’s devastating because we do have a lot of houses that are flooded in town, but the support we’ve had, the community, has been awesome,” McLaughlin said.
In neighboring Sabinal — population 2,000 — Mayor Erik Gomez posted video updates Thursday from the banks of the Sabinal River as it slowly rose.
“We’re getting record floods. Our river is the highest it’s been in many years. It receded a bit, and now it’s rising again,” said Gomez, 26, who has been in office for two years. “Our fire and police have rescued some people, and we have some homes flooded.”
Gomez said he left his truck in Uvalde earlier this week and rode into town on a fire truck, then had to borrow a car from the city after Uvalde was cut off by floodwaters.
Members of the Boerne Fire Department work to rescue a woman Wednesday in Boerne, Texas. (Darren Abate/AP)
Upstream from Kerrville in Hunt, Mike Little concurred that while many homes had flooded, residents were not surprised the way they were last year.
The71-year-old retired handyman lives in a house on a hill overlooking the Guadalupe River. Last year, he helped rescue people from surrounding trees after they were swept away by the river that had risen all the way up a hill to his porch.
This year, nearby Camp Mystic is closed, its owners bankrupt.
Little said that he had not seen anyone swept away, that the river was out of its banks and had flooded some nearby homes — including those that had only recently been restored after flooding last year — but that neighbors were prepared and accounted for.
“This doesn’t even begin to compare to the last flood for us here,” Little said.
He also noted that as opposed to last year, “There was a great deal of communication — texting and calling — among neighbors at 2 in the morning like, ‘Wake up, get out, are you listening?’” and added that the heightened awareness “didn’t have anything to do with the state — it was neighbors.”
Kendall County Judge Shane Stolarczyk, the county’s chief executive, gave a brief update with the county’s emergency manager outside their command center Thursday afternoon.
Stolarczyk called the floods “reminiscent” of last July’s flood, although “we’ve taken on a significant amount more water than last year’s flood.”
He noted road and property damage was “prevalent throughout the county,” although it was too early to assess the total mount.
At least 68 residents had evacuated, he said. “We have state assets on the ground assisting us,” Stolarczyk said.
“Right now, we’re at a lull. We’re expecting a second wave coming down the pike sometime this afternoon. Nothing remotely like what we’ve seen, but it’s important for residents to remain vigilant.”
The National Weather Service warned Thursday that the waters could reach levels similar to those of the floods last summer, with the worst of the current flooding in a stretch between Center Point and Bergheim, Texas.
As of 5:30 a.m. Central time Thursday, the Weather Service warned of “a large and deadly flood wave” heading down the Guadalupe River.
“The river gauge at Center Point has risen 32 feet in 4 hours and is expected to reach a crest similar to July 4, 2025 catastrophic river flood. Flash flooding is already occurring.”
Just before 11 a.m. local time, the Kerr County Sheriff’s Office said in a post that the river gauge at Center Point had risen to 37 feet just before 6 a.m. In its update, the office said campers at county camps had been confirmed to be safe.
Satellite imagery captures a cluster of extreme rain and thunderstorms over the Texas Hill Country early Thursday. (Ben Noll/The Washington Post; NOAA)
Amid ongoing flooding, the Weather Prediction Center issued a rare high risk, or Level 4 out of 4, of flash flooding and excessive rainfall for the region west of San Antonio into early Friday. High risks are only drawn 4 percent of the time but account for 80 percent of all flood-related financial losses and 36 percent of fatalities.
Most of the floodwaters were pouring into only a couple of rivers. According to hydrologist Reilly Dibble, the discharge of the Guadalupe River at Comfort spiked 190-fold in just three hours.
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By Molly Hennessy-Fiske, Stella Canino-Quiñones, Ben Noll and Matthew Cappucci
More:
Here are some “ETs” recorded from around the U.S. the last couple of days, their consequences, and some extreme temperature outlooks, as well as any extreme precipitation reports:
Here is More Climate News from Friday:
(As usual, this will be a fluid post in which more information gets added during the day as it crosses my radar, crediting all who have put it on-line. Items will be archived on this site for posterity. In most instances click on the pictures of each tweet to see each article. The most noteworthy items will be listed first.)