Mirror Indy6%
Floods, droughts and heat domes. Is this the future? 9%
By Enrique Saenz6% Darian Benson12% Elizabeth Gabriel15%
8/6/2026, 12:48:09 PM
BS Summary: This article contains 23 faulty reasoning types, including Appeal to Authority, Negativity Bias, and Availability Heuristic, with Anecdotal as the most egregious example at 8.8% saturation with 167 hits. Analysis detected 962 faulty-reasoning hits from 1,905 analyzed words, generating a BS Score of 18.1% and a BS Rank of 9% (27,987 of 30,584 articles). This article is better (less manipulative) than 91.50% of the article peer group.
Zachary Montgomery wades through water, removing debris from flood drains Aug. 1, 2026, near the intersection on Cherry Street and Memorial Drive in Beech Grove.
Saturday evening, Aaron Owen saw something new in his West Indianapolis neighborhood — someone kayaking down the street.
Heavy rainfall from a slow-moving storm Aug. 1 caused flooding throughout the city.
A small tornado briefly spun through the south side, the National Weather Service said.
“We had some rainfall rates at some points that were reaching 2 and ½ inches per hour.
Those are really high rainfall rates,” said Andrew White, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Indianapolis.
So much rain fell in a short period of time that the gauges at the Indianapolis International Airport registered more rain that day than during the entire month of July.
The view looking east on Madison Avenue toward Christel House South Academy.
Steve Dolzall said when Madison Ave floods, the water runs straight down a slope to his basement garage.
If you feel like the weather has gotten out of hand, you’re not alone.
Thunderstorms and heavy rainfall have hit Indianapolis hard this year.
The last few years have also seen lengthy droughts, heat domes and wildfire smoke blowing south from Canada.
It feels like we go from one extreme to another.
In fact, the Aug. 1 storms followed a July that had 1.63 inches of rainfall, which is far below the average of 4.42 inches.
Extreme weather is a trend that’s becoming more common, according to Indiana State Climatologist Beth Hall .
“What we’re seeing across the entire state is these tail swings where one minute we have so much water there’s localized flooding, there’s flash flood alerts, and the stormwater drainage system might struggle to keep up with all of that rain, and then all of a sudden no rain for an extended period of time,” she said.
The reason, she says, is climate change.
The earth is getting hotter, and that, in turn, is disrupting normal patterns in the atmosphere, making extreme events more common.
It’s probably going to get worse, climate scientists think.
Governments and people will have to plan for excessive heat, pests, allergens, severe storms and flooding.
A video shows someone kayaking down Aaron Owen’s street the evening of Aug.
1, 2026.
Credit: Provided video/Aaron Owen
People wade through floodwaters at the intersection of Kappes Street and West McCarty Street on Aug. 1, 2026, in Indianapolis.
In Owen’s long-time neighborhood, the rainfall created knee-high flooding on South Kappes Street just north of Interstate 70.
The deep water stalled a few cars stopped along adjoining McCarty Street.
After the rain stopped a few hours later, a few shocked neighbors came out to wade in the water.
And then, of course, there was the guy paddling down the street in the blue kayak.
“I’ve been in this neighborhood my whole life, and I’ve never seen it like that,” Owen said.
“When a big truck came by, it made waves that were almost touching my front steps.”
What’s causing severe weather?
According to researchers at the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change , the earth has warmed about 2 degrees since the late 19th century, with most of the warming happening in the last 40 years.
Scientists have attributed this change to an increase in greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, which trap heat and make the earth hotter.
According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration , concentrations of carbon dioxide and methane are far higher than at any point in at least the last 800,000 years.
Those gases, climate scientists say, are coming from human activities like the burning of coal and oil for fuel.
“Historically, we would see storms pass through our country about every three to five days and then another system would come through, which was wonderful for the Corn Belt, because then the crops would get a nice dousing of rain and then they’d have a couple days of relief,” Hall said.
But things have changed.
Storm tracks are shifting farther north or south, she said, giving us long periods of time without rain.
And when storms do come our way, they’re often violent with heavy rain.
In the Grace Tuxedo Park neighborhood on the east side, heavy rain Saturday flooded Michelle Mangold’s street and her backyard.
“It’s a swamp,” she said.
“I mean, you almost had to take a boat out to the trash can.”
The near eastsider lives in a duplex with her cats.
She has lived in the area for 27 years, but said the flooding has gotten worse.
The water got so high Saturday her pilot light went out on her hot-water heater.
“I could take a shower, but we had no hot water,” Mangold said.
Zachary Montgomery helps push a vehicle through floodwaters Aug. 1, 2026, near the intersection on Cherry Street and Memorial Drive in Beech Grove.
On the south side, Beech Grove resident Zachary Montgomery, a local plumber, moved to the city a few months ago.
His neighbors told him flooding isn’t typical in the neighborhood.
That was the case until this weekend.
The heavy rains flooded roads near his home, and drains clogged with leaves, branches and trash prevented rainwater from flowing into the sewer system.
Montgomery had to help push a car stalled by flooding out of an intersection and scoop out debris from drains to prevent a bad situation from getting worse.
“All that debris that was floating on top of the water just kept on clogging up the grates,” Montgomery said.
“So I had to keep on going down there and digging it up.”
How is climate change affecting Indy?
The National Weather Service’s Indianapolis office has kept temperature and precipitation records for the city that date back to 1871.
That gives meteorologists like White a chance to see how current weather compares to what’s happened in the past.
He’s noticed the rainfall pattern shift, too.
“Some of the differences we’ve seen is we’re seeing more rain events that are heavier rain, and then periods of dry weather,” White said.
According to the National Weather Service Precipitation Scorecard for Indianapolis , the city experienced below average precipitation in the first three months of 2025.
That was followed by a 96-hour torrent in early April that dropped more than 5 inches of rain.
That rain event was followed by a string of 10 months of below-average precipitation that was broken in March 2026, when 7.66 inches of rain fell.
That was the eighth wettest March on record.
For some, the rainfall is causing flooding where it didn’t happen before.
A video captured near the intersection of Madison Avenue and East Pleasant Run Parkway North Drive shows weather during an EF-0 tornado.
According to the National Weather Service, it lasted two minutes.
Credit: Provided video/Kristen Tjaden
Southsider Kristen Tjaden, who has lived in the South Village Neighborhood since 2012, said she’s never experienced this kind of flooding.
“The flooding on Madison (Avenue) is not normal and it’s happened after several times it’s rained.
That’s new and it doesn’t seem like there’s a long-term fix,” she said.
Shifting rainfall patterns are affecting the accuracy of flood maps, making it more difficult for Indianapolis residents to know whether they live in a flood-prone area.
About 18% of Marion County is in the 100-year and 500-year floodplains of the White River and other waterways.
That means these properties have a 1-in-100 and a 1-in-500 chance of a flood happening in any given year.
But those events are likely to happen more frequently now.
“What used to be 100-year floods sometimes are now happening at much shorter intervals,” Indianapolis floodplain administrator Alena Jones told Mirror Indy last year .
“They’re actually happening at 20-year intervals, or even less.”
Many communities across the state have stormwater systems designed to handle a different amount of rain than they have experienced in the past.
In Indianapolis, the Department of Public Works undertakes major drainage projects in neighborhoods across the city every year, but it doesn’t have the budget or manpower to update every neighborhood.
Many homes in flood-prone areas were built before laws existed to prevent their construction.
Some that live in those homes, like eastsider Mangold, don’t have the means to move away.
“Every time it rains, we get to smell the city’s sewage nastiness until it dries out,” Mangold said.
Climate change could be a mixed bag in Indiana
In 2018, a team of over 100 researchers led by Purdue University looked at how climate change has impacted Indiana so far and how it would continue to affect the state until the year 2100.
The Indiana Climate Change Impacts Assessment found that the state is most likely going to get hotter and experience more rainfall if greenhouse gas emissions continue at their current rate or increase.
Among the changes they found was that average annual temperatures are expected to rise at least 2 degrees by 2050, negatively impacting air quality, extending allergy season and raising the likelihood of heat-related illnesses, such as heat exhaustion and heat stroke.
It will also create more favorable conditions for some pests and invasive species.
Hotter weather means we won’t experience the deep freeze that kills pests during the winter.
Heavy rain events will increase flooding risks and pollute water by causing sewer systems to overflow.
Despite the dark projections, Hall said Indiana might have it better than other states.
Southern states , like Florida and Alabama, will face more destructive hurricanes, deadly heat waves and rising sea levels.
Western states , like California and Oregon, will face a higher chance of wildfires.
“Even though we will feel some of the extremes of climate change, people will want to come here because it’s less disastrous than other areas,” Hall said.
“But that’s another consideration that needs to be made.
If more people move here, how are we going to respond to that?”
Indiana University’s Environmental Resilience Institute is helping local governments across the state create climate action plans to deal with future impacts.
The institute is also spearheading an effort to update the nearly decade-old climate change impacts assessment.
Questions about flooding?
To learn more about what you can do to prepare for floods, check out the U.S.
Department of Homeland Security’s Ready website .
Check out the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s FloodSmart website to learn about the National Flood Insurance Program and other programs to ensure you’re financially prepared for flooding.
Indianapolis’ Floodplain Management office can help provide answers to more local questions, like figuring out if you live in a flood zone or what regulations may affect construction.
You can reach them by phone at 317-327-8700 or via email at flood@indy.gov .
Mirror Indy, a nonprofit newsroom, is funded through grants and donations from individuals, foundations and organizations.
Sign up for our free newsletters .
Mirror Indy reporter Enrique Saenz covers west Indianapolis.
Contact him at 317-983-4203 or enrique.saenz@mirrorindy.org .
Follow him on Bluesky at @enriquesaenz.bsky.social .
Mirror Indy reporter Darian Benson covers east Indianapolis.
Contact her at 317-397-7262 or darian.benson@mirrorindy.org .
Follow her on X @HelloImDarian or on Bluesky @darianbenson.bsky.social .
Mirror Indy reporter Elizabeth Gabriel covers the south side of Marion County.
Contact her at elizabeth.gabriel@mirrorindy.org .
Follow her on X at @_elizabethgabs .
The post Floods, droughts and heat domes.
Is this the future?
appeared first on Mirror Indy .
Speakers
21speakers46%attributed speech1,031writer words
Selected voice
84%flagged-word coverageMichelle Mangold
81 attributed words9.3% of attributed speech42% writer coverage
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