the way it works geographically. but those rivers, those bayous in houston are also incredibly important in terms of climate because houston is on low-lying ground. when there is an influx of rain, houston needs to drain out, it is those bayous that do that work. the bayous take on the extra water and funnel it out into groundwater and galveston bay and the gulf of mexico. the bayous do that heavy lifting for the low-lying city of houston. now, in recent years, texas and big parts of the whole southwest have had the opposite problem. they've been way too dry. texas has been coping with an extreme drought for the past few years. in the year 2011, 97% of the state of texas was rated as being under extreme drought or even worse ratings than that. but over the past few weeks, somebody somewhere in the universe decided to flip a switch, rather more like turn on a faucet, and specifically in houston that led to some pretty