New research sheds light on Texas hill country floods Lisa Lock Scientific Editor Andrew Zinin Chief Editor Two companion papers in the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society provide new insight into the causes and predictability of the 2025 Texas Hill Country floods, the deadliest flash flood event in the United States since 1976. In 2025, catastrophic flash floods claimed at least 135 lives across the Texas Hill Country, including 119 in Kerr County. Among the victims were 28 people at Camp Mystic, including campers, counselors and the camp's director.

Since the disaster, researchers have extensively analyzed its meteorological causes, the performance of flood forecasts and opportunities to reduce future flood risk. Two papers published this month provide new insights. The papers are available in "early online" format (they have passed peer review but are not yet in their final published form).

Experimental models accurately forecast catastrophic Guadalupe River flooding The precise location of heavy rainfall makes a major difference in areas like the Hill Country, where many river basins are close together. National Weather Service models in operational use in July 2025 were able to highlight the potential for flash flooding, but researchers hope that ongoing advances in forecasting could someday help predict precipitation intensity and location far in advance for vulnerable places like Camp Mystic. Incorporating higher-resolution data may help account for the local atmospheric factors that determine when and where flash floods take place.

To determine whether models still in development might have been able to provide a more precise and usable forecast, Jonathan Gourley and colleagues at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)'s National Severe Storms Laboratory and the University of Oklahoma ran an experimental, fine-resolution configuration of the NOAA/National Severe Storms Laboratory's "Warn on Forecast" system (WoFS). They fed model runs into the "FLASH" flood prediction system using data from the lead-up to the 2025 flood disaster. As the authors of the first paper note, more than 50% of the model runs "would have yielded forecasts of extreme and record-breaking flows 5–7 [hours] in advance"—accuracy that, in an operational model, would have provided much greater lead time for places like Camp Mystic.

This, the authors say, "provid[es] strong motivation to develop a coupled WoFS-FLASH for real-time application," which might help save lives in the future. "The scientific community has recognized the need for forecasting improvements of extreme rainfall events," says Gourley. "The system we evaluated shows the potential to improve information availability and accuracy in the watch-to-warning gap.

With better information, users like National Weather Service forecasters and emergency managers will be able to anticipate the specific locations of impending flash flood threats with more lead time so they can respond and communicate more effectively." Gourley adds that "NOAA is leading an effort called the Precipitation Prediction Grand Challenge, and a component of this project is improving flash flood prediction.