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Did fiscal conservatism block plans for a new flood warning system in Kerr County?
More flooding, this time in Iowa, as heavy rain risk shifts back to the Southern Plains
In brief: The Davenport, Iowa area dealt with some serious flooding last night. Today’s risk shifts back to Texas, Oklahoma, and New Mexico. The tropics remain quiet, but Florida should see a fair bit of rain next week as a tropical disturbance emerges in the Gulf. And we’ve got some good articles to share on the complexities involved in the Texas flooding tragedy.
Davenport flooding
The latest in an absolute spate of flash flood emergencies occurred yesterday in Davenport, Iowa. This was caused by a line of slow-moving thunderstorms that dumped 2 to 4 inches on the Iowa side of the Quad Cities. This brought totals for the day up to about 5 inches in spots.
Numerous instances of cars submerged in water and even some structures flooding occurred with the storms. Precipitable water, or how much moisture is actually available in the atmosphere was rather high across the Midwest yesterday evening, as shown from the European model’s output yesterday.
Officially, south of Davenport, the near upper air sounding in Lincoln, Illinois showed a PWAT of 1.77 inches, which is in the 90th percentile of days. For Davenport, those PWATS were probably closer to the 95th percentile. In other words, another day of some ultra rich moisture that the atmosphere tapped into and produced damaging flooding. Models did an ok job on this event, though the HRRR misplaced the bullseye too far northwest, whereas the HREF model was a little too aggressive and to the east.
For those keeping track, this was the 12th reported flash flood emergency this month across the country. Most obviously occurred in Texas, but there have also been emergencies reported in New Mexico, Pennsylvania, and in Iowa (and Illinois).
Texas, Oklahoma, and New Mexico flooding chances
Next, we focus back on Texas and the southern Plains. Another round of scattered storms may produce locally heavy rainfall today, including for Hill Country. The area is highlighted in a slight risk (2/4) of flooding rains today. This also includes much of Oklahoma and for the burn scars in New Mexico, including Ruidoso.
Anywhere from 1 to 3 inches is possible through today, with localized “lollipop” totals of 3 to 6 inches in any given location also possible. The focus of the highest chances of those higher totals occurring seems to be in Oklahoma and north of DFW Metroplex today. However, chances are not zero between Abilene, San Angelo, and areas west of Kerrville.
Hopefully in any of today’s cases, flooding will be of the sub-emergency sort. The Ruidoso area doesn’t stand out in the modeling today, but given the ultra-high sensitivity of soil there, it would not take much to trigger flash flooding.
Tropics
While the Atlantic is forecast to remain quiet over the next week, I would not be shocked to see a risk area drawn over the northeast Gulf at some point this weekend. Chances are probably 10 percent right now, if that, but there’s enough noise there to at least watch for the potential of a low-end system.
Rain totals of 2 to 5 inches are forecast for the Florida Peninsula and Panhandle coast, back into Mississippi and Alabama. Some localized flooding is possible, but obviously we’ll continue to keep tabs on the potential for anything more organized off the coast here.
More questions in the wake of Texas flooding
I don’t have a lot to write about here today, but I do want to point you to a couple notable articles this morning. To get a good perspective on what went wrong in Texas, the emergency management piece is absolutely critical to understand. Most people know emergency management exists. Many people don’t know what it does. Everyone, however, has an opinion of FEMA it seems.
First, read this excellent article about the warning timeline and the emergency management relationship and response from my colleague and friend Alan Gerard who writes the excellent Balanced Weather Substack.
Then, read his follow up piece here.
This stuff is complicated. It’s never a black and white issue, and the gray area is gigantic and broken into various shades of gray. But I feel like Alan’s posts there give you a good understanding of the interplay between emergency managers and the weather. Alan is a former NOAA/NWS employee who knows more than his share of how the two disciplines engage operationally.
Lastly, Chron.com in Houston published an excellent piece about the debate that occurred in Kerr County back in 2021. Monday morning quarterbacking is easy, but this raises serious, serious questions about what happens when you politicize to an extreme level certain elements of disaster and mitigation. It’s a cautionary tale that a number of vulnerable communities engaged in pre-2025. I’ve learned a lot about disasters as a meteorologist, and to me it makes absolutely no sense to reject federal money for disaster mitigation projects in a world where disasters are becoming more common. That money will go elsewhere instead. Hyper-politicization can literally harm communities. It’s time to start looking at this stuff more clear-eyed.
We will probably take tomorrow off and come back with a fresh post Monday. Thanks again to all our subscribers, new and old. It helps continue to propel us forward and upwards.
Glasstire Names Nicholas Frank as News Editor
Nicholas Frank. Photo: Josh Huskin
Glasstire is pleased to announce the appointment of Nicholas Frank as the publication’s News Editor. Mr. Frank, who is based in San Antonio, will succeed Jessica Fuentes, who was promoted last month to the position of Editor-in-Chief.
In his full-time role as News Editor, Mr. Frank will oversee Glasstire’s news content and also contribute other feature stories — such as reviews, essays, op-eds, and interviews — to the publication. He will help select Glasstire’s weekly Top Five, and will also participate in Glasstire’s biweekly Art Dirt podcast. He is Glasstire’s first full-time employee to live and work in Central Texas.
Brandon Zech, Glasstire’s Publisher, says of Mr. Frank’s appointment, “I’m excited to have Nicholas join our team as our first full-time staffer based in San Antonio. He has done valuable, incisive reporting on art and culture in the time he’s been in Texas; I’m looking forward to having him continue that work with us.”
Of his new role, Mr. Frank says, “My lifelong vocation has been platforming artists and creative workers. We need these critical thinkers more than ever, and I’m honored to join the Glasstire team to continue telling the stories of Texas culture-makers every day.”
Nicholas Frank is a writer, curator, and artist. He was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, where he lived and worked until 2017. In Milwaukee, he ran the DIY art space Hermetic Gallery from 1993 to 2001, for which he organized exhibitions, performances, public programming, and a public radio show that was broadcast throughout Southeastern Wisconsin. In 2006 he co-founded the Milwaukee International Art Fair, which presented local, national, and international galleries in a neighborhood bowling alley and beer hall.
From 2006 to 2011, Mr. Frank served as the curator at the Institute of Visual Arts (Inova) at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, and then, from 2011 to 2017, he served as a visiting faculty member and Core Curriculum Coordinator at the Milwaukee Institute of Art & Design, helping to rejuvenate the Fine Arts program. In 2017, artist and curator Michelle Grabner selected Mr. Frank for an Artpace residency, which brought him to San Antonio for the first time since a visit at age 6. He became the first Artpace national resident to relocate to San Antonio, and went on to exhibit his artwork locally in exhibitions at the Contemporary at Blue Star, Sala Diaz, Dockspace, the University of Texas at San Antonio, and Fl!ght Gallery, and in other venues nationally.
Writing and criticism have long been a part of Mr. Frank’s practice. He served as an assistant editor and graphic designer for the bimonthly Milwaukee-based publication Art Muscle from 1994 to 1996, and then worked as a freelance entertainment reporter for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel from 1996 to 2000. His writing has also appeared on his personal blog, Nicholas Frank Public Library, and in Artforum, Sculpture Magazine, Art Papers, the New Art Examiner, X-tra, Southwest Contemporary, and in catalog essays for various galleries and artists, including the 2014 Whitney Biennial.
In 2016 he participated in a Creative Capital/Warhol Foundation Art Writers Grant Program Workshop with Barry Schwabsky, the art critic for The Nation. In 2017 he was hired as an arts and culture reporter for the San Antonio Report. In this position, he covered a broad array of subjects, including classical and contemporary music, visual art, city government and funding, public art, museums, historical preservation, and other subjects. Mr. Frank worked at the Report until the publication cut its arts and culture coverage in 2024. He then began covering select news stories for Glasstire.
Mr. Frank began his role at Glasstire on July 7. He may be reached at nicholas@glasstire.com.
About Glasstire
Glasstire is an online publication that covers visual art in Texas. Its mission is to expand the conversation about art in the state. It has been in continuous operation since January 2001. It is a nonprofit 501(c)(3) publication, supported in part by grants from The Houston Endowment, The Brown Foundation, Inc., the National Endowment for the Arts, the Greater Houston Community Foundation, the City of Houston through Houston Arts Alliance, the Texas Commission for the Arts, and the Still Water Foundation. Glasstire’s name is an homage to Robert Rauschenberg’s sculptures of tires cast in glass. The artworks evoke traveling great distances, at great speed, with great clarity.
Glasstire is the oldest web-only art magazine in the country.
The post Glasstire Names Nicholas Frank as News Editor appeared first on Glasstire.
You, young man, have performed a valuable service here today.
You, young man, have performed a valuable service here today.
Now who’s this guy? It’s becoming like a Marvel movie in here.
Now who’s this guy? It’s becoming like a Marvel movie in here.
Executive Producer: The Sun King.
Executive Producer: The Sun King.
