A tip of the hat for the paraphrasing of post's title to Daniel Kahneman's excellent book, "Thinking Fast and Slow."
Early in the morning on July 4, a flash flood hit the Guadalupe River in Kern County, Texas. As I write this in the evening on July 9, media reports suggest there are 120 confirmed deaths and still more than 150 people missing.
This is a terrible tragedy that given modern weather monitoring and forecasting capabilities shouldn't happen. The question is why did it happen?
In our modern, social-media-driven, hyper-politicalized times, you can find just about anything to support your preconceived notions as to why this happened. There have been reports blaming climate change, National Weather Service personnel cuts, National Weather Service forecasts, the retirement of a National Weather Service Warning Coordination meteorologist due to the actions of Doge, lax county emergency management officials, unapproved alarm systems, etc.
This is a situation though that needs slower thinking and less fast posting.
What is needed is a careful, apolitical assessment of everything from the long-term education and preparation of communities to the issuing, content, and delivery of weather watches and warnings.
This is a tragedy that shouldn't have happened. For it to never happen again, we need to rise to the occasions, ask hard questions, understand where our scientific, political, and communications systems failed, and move forward. This will take leadership and expertise, not social media posts, sloppy news coverage, or CYA politics.
Agree. No tragedy should be exploited.
ReplyDeleteIt’s also important to act swiftly enough to avoid another one. Zeynep Tufekci has an excellent article in today’s NYT that details how part of the relatively slow response was due to a NWS warning system undermined by a key staff cut. These same staff cuts could have serious effects on warnings for the upcoming hurricane, tornado, and monsoon season.
So, yeah, don’t rush the analysis. But don’t tarry either
Before saying this, I want to make it clear that I am deeply concerned about the loss of personnel at the NWS (see https://wasatchweatherweenies.blogspot.com/2025/02/cuts-to-noaanws-budget-and-personnel.html). The article you mention (https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/09/opinion/texas-floods-nws.html) essentially presents a hypothesis that the retirement of the warning coordination meteorologist could have had an impact. It is not unusual for an office to lose a warning coordination meteorologist to retirement or other positions within the agency. It will take interviews and analysis to ascertain whether or not in this case it mattered.
DeleteI'm more interested in seeing a scientific analysis of synoptic conditions that caused such rapid flooding. I have looked at model forecasts for the time period and see the tongue of high integrated water vapor transport from the Gulf of Mexico into Texas. I have also looked at a relief map of the flood area. It appears that two rivers/creeks merge on a fairly deep low lying flood plain. The terrain surrounding the creeks rises some 600 feet or more above the creek beds. I have not looked at maps of the watershed for the rivers/creeks. My guess is it is fairly extensive and that this area is prone to flood fairly regularly. Thoughts?
ReplyDeleteI was too busy having fun in Alaska to look. Sometimes the weather weenie needs a vacation, although southeast Alaska is no vacation from weather!
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