Torrential rain swamped streets across Palm Beach County this week, leaving cars stranded and forcing rescue teams to evacuate residents as floodwaters rose. Footage filmed recently shows several cars partially submerged along flooded streets, while rescue teams transport residents in dinghies and boats. Pickup trucks are also seen driving past with dinghies in the back. West Palm Beach recorded 7.39 inches of rain on November 2, smashing a daily record set in 1925.
The city received 11.67 inches over two days, overwhelming parts of its drainage system and leaving roads impassable. Earlier this week, emergency crews also evacuated 71 people from flooded neighbourhoods in Riviera Beach. Authorities urged motorists to avoid flooded roads as crews worked to clear drains and assist affected communities. (Source: Ruptly)
Press TV reports record-breaking rainfall and flooding in Palm Beach County, with residents evacuated by boat and roads left impassable. It gives the reader the record, the rainfall totals and the rescues. It never says that a warming climate is making extreme rainfall like this more frequent and more intense.
Leaves out the climate link
Serious
“West Palm Beach recorded 7.39 inches of rain on November 2, smashing a daily record set in 1925.”
Why this matters
Press TV reports a daily rainfall record broken by a wide margin, and 11.67 inches over two days in the next sentence. Nowhere in the article does it link this to the warming climate.
The impression it gives
A reader comes away thinking this was a freak downpour with no wider cause, a one-off weather event of the kind that happened in 1925.
The context
Human-caused warming has made heavy rainfall events more frequent and more intense. The article contains no word on climate change or warming, so the reader is never told that the record-breaking rain fits that documented pattern.
How we know
On the recordThat warming has made hot extremes, heavy rainfall, agricultural and ecological drought, fire weather and intense tropical cyclones more frequent or more severe.ipcc.ch (opens in a new tab)
Checked against the whole articleIt never uses the words “climate” and “warming”.
West Palm Beach recorded 7.39 inches of rain on November 2, smashing a daily record set in 1925. Climate change is making extreme rainfall like this more frequent and more intense.