Dry, hot conditions have baked crops throughout most of the Midwest and Great Plains, even in places that started out the growing season with excessive rains.
The late-July storms that devastated St. Louis and Eastern Kentucky helped showcase the risks wrought by a climate that is growing hotter and wetter –- and more prone to dumping massive rains and flash flooding on communities whose creeks, streams and drainage systems are not equipped to handle such volatile waters. The shifting trends raise urgent questions about society’s readiness to cope.
Dry, hot conditions have baked crops throughout most of the Midwest and Great Plains, even in places that started out the growing season with excessive rains.
As the recent storm has reminded us, hurricanes are an annual concern for coastal states along the Gulf of Mexico and the eastern seaboard. But, did you know that even Missouri has been affected by more than 44 hurricanes over the past century and a half?