Rain buckets down as the planet warms

 Dark skies and huge dumps of rain in Louisiana.

By mid-morning on Friday, more than a foot of rain had fallen near Kentwood, Louisiana, in just a 12-hour stretch — a downpour with an estimated likelihood of just once every 500 years, and roughly three months’ worth of rainfall during a typical hurricane season.

It’s the latest in a string of exceptionally rare rainstorms that are stretching the definition of “extreme” weather. It’s exactly the sort of rainstorm that’s occurring more frequently as the planet warms.

In response to the ongoing heavy rains, Louisiana Governor John Bel Edwards declared a statewide state of emergency on Friday, and local governments are distributing sandbags, conducting water rescues, and facilitating evacuations. The New Orleans Times-Picayune is maintaining a live blog of the latest developments. The Tickfaw River north of New Orleans soared 18 feet in about 12 hours to a new record crest on Friday morning, beating the water level of April 1983, and five feet higher than the high-water mark during Hurricane Isaac in 2012, the last hurricane to make landfall in Louisiana.

Read Pacific Standard story - “America’s Latest 500-Year Rainstorm Is Underway Right Now in Louisiana.”