southern Illinois was drenched by 8 to 12 inches of rain in 12 hours, as the United States saw its third 1-in-1,000-year rain in a week. The area just south ofNewton, Ill., received 14 inches of rain in 12 hours. The storms brought damaging winds and rain.
Climate change is increasing the occurrence of heavy rain events.
The NWS office in Lincoln received about 20 reports of flooding on Tuesday. There were several flash flood warnings in the area.
More than 2,000 CenterPoint Energy customers were still without power as of noon Central time on Wednesday, a day after tens of thousands of customers lost power.
Similar events in Kentucky and Missouri preceded the heavy rain in Illinois. At least one person died as a result of flash flooding in the St. Louis area last week. Rural areas of eastern Kentucky received up to 14 inches of rain last week. There were 37 deaths at the most recent count.
The flooding was worse in St. Louis due to the fact that urban areas are less able to absorb water than rural areas.
The amount of rain that fell in a short period of time has a small chance of occurring in any given year.
Climate change was not present before that. Since the dawn of the Industrial Revolution, the global average temperature has increased by 1.1 degrees Celsius. The air can hold more humidity if the temperature goes up by a certain amount. Heavy rains are getting more frequent.
The Northeast and Midwest are already wet. The Detroit area got 6 inches of rain in June and 8 inches in August, and Hurricane Ida dumped more than 3 inches of rain on New York City in just one hour, causing flooding that killed 11 people and shut down the subway system.
If climate change continues it will get worse in the future, according to academic studies.
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