Recent work on the 16-20 May 2021 flooding event that impacted southeastern Texas and southern Louisiana was recently published in the journal Physical Geography. The event caused five deaths and over $1 billion in damage across the impacted region. The heavy rainfall was caused by the remnants of several thunderstorm complexes that formed over Texas and moved out over the Gulf of Mexico. This was a different mechanism than what produced the August 2016 event that occurred over much of the same area which was tropical in origin. The May 2021 event also produced extremely intense rainfall over some small areas due to embedded thunderstorms.

The manuscript can be accessed from the link above if you (or your university) have a subscription. Otherwise the Accepted Manuscript (same text/figures but without the copy setting from the publisher) is available here.

Many thanks to my co-authors, in particular Dr. Vincent Brown (LSU) who led this research.