Miami Is Entering a State of Unreality. Credit:  Daniel Kozin / AP

Hank Perez, 72, was trying to get home to North Miami Beach on Wednesday afternoon last week, but the rain had other plans. Floodwaters as high as the hood of Perez’s gray Toyota Yaris stalled the car; he pulled onto the median and called for roadside assistance, but it never came. Thousands of other commuters found themselves in similar straits: About a foot and a half of water had fallen across South Florida—not the product of a hurricane or a tropical storm but of a rainstorm, dubbed Invest 90L, a deluge that meteorologists are calling a once-in-200-years event. It was the fourth such massive rainfall to smite southeastern Florida in as many years.

“Rain bombs” such as Invest 90L are products of our hotter world; warmer air has more room between its molecules for moisture. That water is coming for greater Miami and the 6 million people who live here. This glittering city was built on a drained swamp and sits atop porous […]

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