(Bloomberg) -- Eleven months ago, Houston had a deadly flood. This week, the city had another.
Events like these are often called “ 100-year floods,” and that can be misleading. The U.S. government began using the term in the 1960s to describe a flood that has a 1% chance of happening in any given year, not a chance of happening only once a century. It’s statistical probability — and that can change over time.
“Over the span of 30 years, which is the length of many people’s mortgages, there is a once in four chance it is going to happen,” said Mari Tye, a project scientist in the mesoscale and microscale meteorological laboratory at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado. “Over 100 years, there is a 67% chance.”
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