Josh Fahey

TEXAS FLOOD: There are many questions about the tragic flash flood on the Guadalupe River late Thursday night and early Friday morning. The death toll is now over 50, including some children who were at Camp Mystic. Here are some key points about the warning process... *A flash flood watch was issued for Kerr County at 12:41a CT (just after midnight Thursday night). The watch mentioned isolated rain amounts of 10 inches, and stated "Excessive runoff may result in flooding of rivers, creeks, streams, and other low-lying and flood-prone locations. Creeks and streams may rise out of their banks." This followed a flash flood watch that was issued Thursday afternoon. *A flash flood warning was issued at 1:14a CT For Kerr County, which mentioned "life threatening flash flooding of creeks, streams, and rivers". *A flash flood "emergency" was issued at 5:34a CT for Kerr County and the Guadalupe River. *NWS Austin/San Antonio had five on staff during the event; normally two would be on duty. Extra staffing was planned before the event started. *This type of flash flooding on the Guadalupe River is nothing new. Similar events happened in 1998, 1978, 1935, and 1921. This year's event was related to deep moisture from a tropical system (Barry) that originated in the East Pacific and made landfall near Tampico, Tamaulipas, Mexico, on June 29. Social scientists will do much research on this in coming months and years. In my opinion one of the primary problems is the high number of false alarms; flash flood warnings that are issued with only minor flooding involved. This is also a problem with tornadoes in many parts of the country. I am very thankful locally NWS Birmingham leads the nation in lowering the false alarm ratio. One takeaway is the importance of having a NOAA Weather Radio at every home, business, and any place where there are large number of people gathered (like a camp on a river). I would imagine cell service is very spotty along the Guadalupe where the camps were located. NWR does not use cell service and will wake you up. The alert is very loud, and can't be missed. Again, I ask that you keep political rhetoric off the comment section here; left wing and right wing extremists are pushing false information and narratives are not close to the truth. Now is simply the time to support families that are suffering after the tragedy. We will have a long discussion on this event with the WeatherBrains crew tomorrow night. In addition to the audio podcast you can watch it live as well on the WB YouTube Channel: YouTube.com/weatherbrains