“big droughts end in big floods”: NOAA expert

From NOAA scientist Jake Crouch in his "reflections on a really big drought" today in climate.gov:

The Southern Plains drought lasted more than four years before coming to an end very quickly in the spring of 2015. There is an old adage that big droughts end in big floods, and that was the case in Oklahoma and Texas, when a slow-moving climate disaster was washed away by a fast-moving catastrophe.

Here's a NOAA chart showing the Southern Plains Drought as of 2011:

Scary to contemplate a flood as extreme as our drought today.

Further reminds of what oceanographer and forecaster Bill Patzert has been known to say, which is that El Niños come in all shapes and sizes — small, medium, and Godzilla.