Learning from hydrometeorological extremes: Research, operations, and communication

Authors: TIWARI, ALKA - University Of Texas At Austin; BYTHEWAY, JANICE - University Of Colorado; Knipper, Kyle; YANEZ, ANTHONY - Krpc 2 News - Houston Tx

Submitted to: Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society
Publication Type: Peer Reviewed Journal
Publication Acceptance Date: 7/1/2026
Publication Date: 7/1/2026
Citation: Tiwari, A., Bytheway, J., Knipper, K.R., Yanez, A. 2026. Learning from hydrometeorological extremes: Research, operations, and communication. Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society. 107(7):E1684-E1691. https://doi.org/10.1175/BAMS-D-26-0144.1.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1175/BAMS-D-26-0144.1

Interpretive Summary: This manuscript frames urban hydrometeorological extremes as a converging crisis in which intensifying climate hazards—heavier precipitation, sharper wet-dry whiplash, and rising flood frequencies—are colliding with rapid population and settlement growth in flood-prone areas, placing more people at risk than ever before. Its central argument is that technical and hydrological solutions are insufficient on their own, because flood risk is also shaped by institutional inequities, competing stakeholder priorities, and social vulnerabilities that surface only when physical, social, ecological, and technological dimensions are examined jointly; accordingly, local knowledge, stakeholder co-production, and crowdsourced data are presented as measurable improvements to flood decision-making. Against this backdrop, the paper introduces the AMS Hydrology Committee's third town hall (January 2026), which used Houston—a city repeatedly tested by major floods and storms, with the 2025 Texas Hill Country floods as a recent reminder—as a case study to draw lessons from past experience across academic, operational, and media perspectives, ultimately aiming to translate advanced data and technical capabilities into actionable, transferable strategies for other cities and hazards.

Technical Abstract: Hydrometeorological extremes are intensifying. The IPCC established that heavy precipitation strengthens roughly 7% per degree Celsius of warming on a global scale (Seneviratne et al., 2021). Rapid swings between wet and dry extremes, called “hydroclimate whiplash” have increased 31 to 66% since the mid-twentieth century (Swain et al., 2025), highlighting the rapid change we are currently experiencing. Extreme precipitation over the Northeast United States tripled in frequency starting in the mid-1990s (Yang et al., 2023). Along with the atmospheric changes, urban populations are growing faster in flood zones than elsewhere. Satellite data show that 58 to 86 million more people lived in flood-inundated areas in 2015 than in 2000 (Tellman et al., 2021). Settlements in the most hazardous zones expanded 122% from 1985 to 2015 (Rentschler et al., 2023). The convergence of these climate and development patterns has led to more people being at risk from hydrometeorological extremes than ever before. Technical advances alone cannot solve this problem. Urban flood risks are shaped by institutional inequities and their legacies, not just hydrology and hydraulics (Hale et al., 2026). Further complicating matters, stakeholders disagree on the nature of the flood problems (Ulibarri et al., 2023). A climate scientist, an emergency manager, and a community resident may look at the same watershed and identify entirely different priorities. This disconnect matters because purely physical analyses miss social vulnerability hotspots that only emerge when social, ecological, and technological dimensions are analyzed together (Chang et al., 2021). Local knowledge measurably improves the outcomes. Co-producing flood models with stakeholders creates more decision-relevant outputs (Pasquier et al., 2020) and crowdsourced data fill critical gaps where formal networks are sparse (Helmrich et al., 2021). The AMS Hydrology Committee convened its third town hall on hydrometeorological extremes in January 2026 to discuss these challenges and potential solutions. Previous sessions explored impacts on marginalized communities (Tiwari et al., 2024) and urban infrastructure resilience (Tiwari et al., 2025) in this context. The 2026 town hall extracted lessons from past experiences of hydrometeorological extremes to inform future actions. The panel included perspectives from the academic, operational, and public media sectors. The City of Houston provided the ideal backdrop for the discussion of urban hydrometeorological extremes. The city has faced Tropical Storm Allison (2001), Hurricane Ike (2008), the Memorial Day (2015) and Tax Day (2016) floods, and Hurricane Harvey (2017), among multiple other weather-society-land-water related crises. Meanwhile, the 2025 Texas Hill Country floods remained fresh in the minds of the participants. Three questions guided our panel discussion: What experiences shaped your understanding of how urban areas interact with extremes? Which strategies succeed or fail when integrating advanced data into planning? Which lessons transfer to other cities, hazards, or fields? The focus remained on translating technical advances into actionable information.