The tragic Fourth of July flash flood in Texas that has killed a minimum of 78 folks is shining a highlight on the nation’s rising vulnerability to local weather catastrophe.
As rescue crews proceed their frantic seek for lacking youngsters alongside the Guadalupe River, specialists say it’s simply the most recent warning of how rising temperatures are worsening the flood danger.
There have been growing indicators of maximum climate the world over, from extra intense droughts to stronger and extra intense rainstorms. These impacts have been felt profoundly with extra damaging fires, intense water shortages and flooding in California in addition to in lots of different components of the world.
Whereas the main target stays on frantic seek for lacking folks within the Texas flood zone, this weekend’s tragedy is already heightening dialogue on shifting federal local weather coverage.
Critics worry grim consquences because the federal authorities slashes funding for climate forecasting, shutters local weather web sites and databases, lays off scientists and researchers and weakens catastrophe response capabilities at a second when local weather change is growing the frequency of such occasions.
That features California, the place the Nationwide Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and its subsidiary, the Nationwide Climate Service, are reeling from cutbacks ordered by the Trump administration. In Might, a minimum of two California places of work of the NWS stated they not have sufficient workers to function in a single day: Hanford and Sacramento, which collectively cowl almost the entire Central Valley and Sierra Nevada mountains, a few of the state’s most fire-and-flood-prone areas.
Nationally, greater than 600 scientists and meteorologists have already been laid off or taken a buyout from NOAA this yr. The Trump administration is planning to chop hundreds extra workers subsequent yr — roughly 17% of its workforce — and slash the company’s finances by greater than $1.5 billion, in keeping with the fiscal 2026 finances request. The president has stated the adjustments will assist cut back federal waste and save taxpayers cash.
But these and different adjustments come as human-caused local weather change contributes to bigger and extra frequent floods, wildfires and hurricanes, amongst different worsening disasters. The Texas flood, specifically, was marked by the kind of extraordinarily intense, extremely localized downpour that’s changing into far more frequent resulting from international warming. Parts of the Guadalupe River rose 26 toes in lower than an hour, state officers stated.
“This is without doubt one of the hardest issues to foretell that’s changing into worse quicker than virtually the rest in a warming local weather, and it’s at a second the place we’re defunding the flexibility of meteorologists and emergency managers to coordinate,” stated Daniel Swain, a local weather scientist with the College of California Agriculture and Pure Assets. “That trifecta looks like a recipe for catastrophe.”
Certainly, simply how often such occasions happen will quickly develop into tougher to inform, because the Trump administration has already eradicated NOAA’s database for monitoring billion-dollar disasters. Its final replace earlier than the shutdown confirmed that there have been 27 climate and local weather disasters with losses exceeding $1 billion every in the USA in 2024. Within the Nineteen Eighties, the nation averaged simply 3.3 such occasions per yr, adjusted for inflation, the database reveals.
The administration final week shut down the U.S. International Change Analysis Program’s web site, which housed congressionally mandated studies and analysis on local weather change. In the meantime, the climate service has begun halting climate balloon operations at a number of areas resulting from staffing shortages, decreasing the quantity of knowledge that’s out there.
Autos sit submerged as a search and rescue employee appears by means of particles for any survivors or stays of individuals swept up within the flash flooding in Hunt, Texas.
(Jim Vondruska / Getty Pictures)
Particulars in regards to the Texas incident are nonetheless unfolding. Some state officers have been fast to level the finger on the Nationwide Climate Service — together with Texas Division of Emergency Administration Chief Nim Kidd, who stated forecasts didn’t adequately predict the quantity of rain that fell on the world.
Company officers stated they did their job — issuing a number of warnings prematurely of the incident, together with some that suggested of probably catastrophic circumstances. A timeline offered to The Instances by the Nationwide Climate Service indicated that an expanded flood hazard outlook was issued on the morning of July 3, and that a number of, more and more pressing alerts adopted.
“The Nationwide Climate Service is heartbroken by the tragic lack of life in Kerr County,” company spokesperson Erica Develop Cei stated in an electronic mail, including that the NWS “stays dedicated to our mission to serve the American public by means of our forecasts and resolution help providers.”
Nevertheless, the native space workplace was additionally brief a number of key positions, together with a senior hydrologist, workers forecaster and meteorologist in cost, the New York Instances reported Sunday. Additionally absent was the workplace’s warning coordination meteorologist — the one who acts because the liaison between the climate service and the general public and emergency administration officers — who took Trump’s buyout earlier this yr.
On Sunday, Texas Rep. Joaquin Castro referred to as for an investigation into whether or not staffing shortages on the company performed a job, telling CNN’s “State of the Union” that “not having sufficient personnel isn’t useful.”
In a press release, the White Home didn’t handle workers reductions however stated no funding cuts have but occurred on the Nationwide Climate Service.
“The well timed and correct forecasts and alerts for Texas this weekend show that the NWS stays totally able to finishing up its crucial mission,” a spokesperson from the U.S. Commerce Division, which oversees NOAA, stated in an electronic mail.
Whereas the exact circumstances that surrounded the Texas tragedy will proceed to be studied within the days and weeks forward, specialists say it’s clear that such local weather hazards will proceed to occur.
“With a hotter environment, there isn’t any doubt that we’ve got seen a rise within the frequency and the magnitude of flash flooding occasions globally,” stated Jonathan Porter, chief meteorologist with AccuWeather.
Porter credited the climate service with issuing warnings prematurely of the flash flood, however stated there was a breakdown when it got here to native officers’ response to the knowledge.
“The important thing query is, what did folks do with these warnings that have been well timed, that have been issued?” Porter stated. “What was their response, what was their climate security plan, after which what actions did they take to based mostly upon these well timed warnings, as a way to make sure that folks’s lives have been saved?”

An individual reacts whereas taking a look at belongings exterior sleeping quarters at Camp Mystic alongside the banks of the Guadalupe River after a flash flood swept by means of the world in Hunt, Texas.
(Julio Cortez / Related Press)
But even efforts to boost coordination between the climate service, the federal government and most of the people may quickly be on the chopping block. NOAA has been researching higher methods to speak catastrophe warnings, together with improved public schooling and early warning techniques, at its Oceanic and Atmospheric Analysis division, which is going through a hefty 74% finances lower if not full elimination.
The president’s proposed 2026 finances would additionally cut back funding for specialised, high-resolution thunderstorm fashions which were developed for simply the sort of occasion, in keeping with Swain of UC ANR. He famous that it’s an space of analysis that was pioneered by the U.S. authorities, largely as a result of the nation has a few of the most excessive thunderstorm climate on this planet.
“Practically the entire analysis on this planet, traditionally, towards understanding some of these storms and predicting them has been sponsored by the U.S. federal authorities, and almost all of the advances we’ve got made have been U.S. taxpayer-dollar funded,” Swain stated. “Different nations aren’t going to try this on behalf of the U.S. … So if we don’t do it for ourselves, we aren’t going to have entry to that.”
The Texas flood “is consultant of exactly the type of nightmare state of affairs that’s going to develop into extra doubtless with the additional excessive cuts which might be proposed, and more likely to be carried out to a point,” he added.
Notably, the adjustments at NOAA and the NWS are assembly with different new priorities from the president, together with a renewed funding in oil and gasoline drilling — fossil gasoline industries which might be among the many high contributors to international warming.
In southeastern states reminiscent of Florida, officers are additionally grappling with lowered hurricane forecasting capabilities on the peak of hurricane season.
And in California, the place a number of wildfires are at present burning, state officers are additionally going through lowered firefighting capabilities as Trump deploys Nationwide Guard firefighting troops in Los Angeles and lowered forest administration and firefighting staffing on the U.S. Forest Service.
The administration has additionally expressed curiosity in disbanding FEMA, the Federal Emergency Administration Company, as early as this fall.