A man rows a boat down a residential street after flooding in Angleur, Province of Liege, Belgium, on July 16. With more water vapor in a warmer atmosphere, rainfall rates can increase and flash flooding is more likely to occur. While the rain is ultimately beneficial, if a region that has been experiencing intense drought gets hit with heavy rain, flash flooding is more likely to occur. A similar, though at first-take not as extreme, flooding event in Western Europe in 2016 that killed 18 in Germany, France, Romania and Belgium, was analyzed by scientists to see if climate change played a role in the floods. They found that a warmer climate made the flooding 80-90% more likely to occur than it was in the past before man-made climate change.

Source: CNN July 16, 2021 09:33 UTC