{"id":377687,"date":"2026-07-18T05:00:08","date_gmt":"2026-07-18T05:00:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/377687\/"},"modified":"2026-07-18T05:00:08","modified_gmt":"2026-07-18T05:00:08","slug":"how-the-hill-country-flooded-two-years-in-a-row","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/377687\/","title":{"rendered":"How the Hill Country flooded two years in a row"},"content":{"rendered":"

AUSTIN, Texas \u2014 Historic rainfall has fallen in the Hill Country<\/a> this week, causing catastrophic flooding. For the second year in a row, we\u2019ve recorded a once-in-a-generation flood. But this year was much different than last year\u2019s flood. Let\u2019s dive into what happened this week and dig a little deeper into the science about what makes these floods happen.<\/p>\n

We actually had a pretty unusual setup this week. An area of high pressure began to set up across the Northern Plains, staying well to our north. Meanwhile, high pressure in the Gulf began to strengthen, which means a little area of low pressure in the middle of it all was at the mercy of these large areas of high pressure, slowly guiding it farther and farther west, until it was moving into Texas from Louisiana on Monday, July 13th.<\/p>\n

\"We<\/p>\n

We actually had a pretty unusual setup this week. An area of high pressure began to set up across the Northern Plains, staying well to our north. Meanwhile, high pressure in the Gulf began to strengthen, which means a little area of low pressure in the middle of it all was at the mercy of these large areas of high pressure, slowly guiding it farther and farther west, until it was moving into Texas from Louisiana on Monday, July 13th. (Photo: CBS Austin)<\/p>\n

This setup doesn\u2019t happen very often because it relies so heavily on a particular set of events in sequence to occur. The area of low pressure brought along a weak series of frontal boundaries, which led to showers and thunderstorms moving in on Monday afternoon, with forecast models picking up on the threat of these storms producing heavy rainfall and having an increased risk outlook for Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday for the threat of flash flooding. Tuesday\u2019s storms would pack the first serious punch, with flash flood warnings being issued for the Hill Country<\/a> as well as a few areas east of I-35 in Lee, Fayette, and Milam Counties.<\/p>\n

This wave of heavy rainfall sets the stage for the next rounds of historic rainfall. Going into this week, we had actually been pretty dry and quiet, so the sun baked our soil, which allowed us to soak up a bit of the early-week rainfall. But those totals began to rack up, and before we knew it, we had a situation unfolding. We had forecasted rainfall reaching 10-15 inches in the short-range forecast models. Our buffer of dry soils is now gone as an entire season\u2019s worth of rainfall fell around the Hill Country in just a few hours.<\/p>\n

Wednesday brought the heaviest rainfall near San Antonio, particularly heavy in the town of Boerne, prompting water rescues with the flooding of Cibolo Creek<\/a>, washing away vehicles and closing down crucial intersections and roads in the town. This prompted one of many Flash Flood Emergencies, which is the highest level of flash flood warning that can be issued, only in exceptionally dangerous and life-threatening situations<\/p>\n

On the night of July 15th, in the pre-dawn hours of Thursday, training thunderstorms fueled by a nighttime low-level jet stalled out in the Hill Country, particularly Gillespie<\/a> and Kerr counties<\/a>. As much as 8-10 inches fell in just the span of 6-8 hours, quickly prompting Flash Flood Emergencies for catastrophic rainfall.<\/p>\n

The Pedernales rose to Major Flood Stage<\/a> in Fredericksburg, one of its highest river levels in decades, since 1979. The previously peaceful rivers turned into muddy rapids as billions of gallons of water washed kayaks, refrigerators, pieces of cabins, and entire trees through the rapid currents.<\/p>\n

Kerrville, which was just getting over the first anniversary of the July 4th floods last year, picked up another Flash Flood Emergency this week, with Comfort, TX, picking up another Flash Flood Emergency issued for historic river levels of the Guadalupe River<\/a>.<\/p>\n

All in all, 7 Flash Flood Emergencies have been issued this week by the Austin\/San Antonio NWS Office. This does not include two more to our west in the San Angelo forecasting office.<\/p>\n

This is exceptionally rare when just over a year ago, as many of us were buying fireworks and preparing BBQs for Fourth of July fireworks, disaster struck in Kerr County<\/a>. And just 24 hours later, another disaster struck in Burnet, Williamson County, and Travis County<\/a>. All of that started in the Gulf, with Tropical Storm Barry making landfall in Mexico to close out the month of June. That tropical moisture and remnant area of low pressure moved into Texas in the following days, trapped by high pressure to the east and west, which meant the low pressure wasn\u2019t going anywhere.<\/p>\n

In many ways, the July 2026 Hill Country Floods were very similar. Particularly due to the amount of rainfall, where the rain fell, and the rivers that ended up flooding. But the 2026 event was very impressive for a different reason: it didn\u2019t have the help of a tropical system as we did in 2025. But something else that occurred in both years, and that\u2019s the formation of an MCV, or a Mesoscale Convective Vortex. It\u2019s basically a miniature area of low pressure brought on by rain-cooled air. These \u201cmini-lows\u201d can help sustain the extreme rainfall rates that we saw this week and in July 2025. They can basically keep generating showers and storms so long as the larger upper-level low is nearby and if there is a constant supply of moisture for the rainfall to sustain itself.<\/p>\n

ALSO| Flooding prompts 24 rescues in Uvalde as more rain expected<\/a><\/p>\n

That\u2019s where the \u201clow-level jet\u201d comes in. It\u2019s basically like being lazy on your couch, not wanting to go to the fridge to get a nice soda. Instead you\u2019d grab a long pole to get your soda from a distance. A low-level jet is basically a stream of strong winds from the very moist air from the Gulf, being funneled into the system. This typically happens at night when the atmosphere is calmest. During the day, you have the sunshine heating the ground, creating turbulence and upward winds, disrupting that flow of air. In this case, it basically takes the air from farther away and injects it right into the storms. That\u2019s how these storms developed without a parent tropical storm.<\/p>\n

It is certainly something to think about. Two generational once in a ____ year flood, just 1 year apart. Both of them in the month of July, typically our driest month of the year. Could these events be seen more often? Could a 1 in 1000 year flood actually become a 1 in 500 year flood? It certainly could, but that\u2019s a story for another day.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"AUSTIN, Texas \u2014 Historic rainfall has fallen in the Hill Country this week, causing catastrophic flooding. For the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":377688,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[132,134,133],"class_list":["post-377687","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-austin","tag-austin","tag-austin-headlines","tag-austin-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/377687","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=377687"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/377687\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/377688"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=377687"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=377687"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=377687"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}