This story is published in partnership with the Reno Gazette-Journal, with support by The Water Desk, an independent journalism initiative based at the University of Colorado Boulder’s Center for Environmental Journalism. For the first two decades of the 21st century, not even a once-in-a-millennium drought could deter real estate developers from building vast suburban tracts on
At least 9 inches of rain across eastern Kentucky became floodwater that swept through neighborhoods in July 2022. Leandro Lozada/AFP via Getty Images Mathew Barlow, UMass Lowell Powerful storm systems triggered flash flooding across the U.S. in late July, inundating St. Louis neighborhoods with record rainfall and setting off mudslides in eastern Kentucky,
A new climate is re-writing the story of America’s drylands. Harsh and unrelenting. But also transformative? The dry conditions blanketing much of the American West are setting records nearly every week. Lakes Mead and Powell, the country’s largest reservoirs by capacity, dropped to new lows this year. The Great Salt Lake did, too.