The Stormwater Report

Although downtown Houston, Texas, sits only about 15 m (50 ft) above sea level, enough room exists underground to build a massive tunnel system for stormwater conveyance, according to the preliminary results of a Harris County Flood Control District (HCFCD) inquiry. The conveyance system would span about 16 km (10 mi) and consist of tunnels […]

As the saying goes, everything is bigger in Texas — including the water management challenges. Depending on the weather, many Texans routinely deal with either too much or too little water. Over two weeks in 2017, for example, Hurricane Harvey delivered approximately 80 million acre-feet of water to southeastern parts of the state — enough […]

When Hurricane Harvey inundated eastern Texas late last August, the eye of the storm loitered over land for nearly a week rather than dispersing as it moved farther from the ocean, as most hurricanes do. The result was a stronger, more destructive storm, which dropped a record-breaking 127 cm (50 in.) of rain and directly […]

What happens when a hurricane sends fresh rainwater — up to 124.9 trillion L (33 trillion gal) of it — into the saltwater ocean? In the case of normal-sized storms, the rainwater, which is less dense than saltwater, typically sits atop the ocean in a distinct “blob,” which generally mixes into the ocean within hours […]