As a climate scientist who calls Texas home, I can tell you that the Hill Country of Texas is no stranger to flooding. Meteorologists often refer to it as “Flash Flood Alley” because of its steep terrain, shallow soils, and its history of sudden and intense rainfall.

"These are roughly one-in-1,000-year events, [and] would be extremely rare in the absence of human-caused warming,” one climate scientist says.

Researchers agree that climate change has made torrential downpours more frequent—but the science gets murky when examining how strong the link is between an extreme event and climate change.