This is a misleading definition as it makes people believe that if there is a 100-year flood this year, that equal or worse flooding will not happen next year.

This is a misleading definition as it makes people believe that if there is a 100-year flood this year, that equal or worse flooding will not happen next year. Long term observed water levels are fed into a model with normal distribution, and a 100-year flood is then defined as 99-th percentile of the model. This means that there's a 1% chance of a 100-year flooding each year. Global warming and climate change have an effect that there's a lot more water vapour in air. Same air mass can deliver more rainfall on a given territory, pushing observed water levels into higher extremes, meaning what used to be 100-year flood is now 25 (4% yearly chance), 10 (10% yearly chance) or even 5-year (20% yearly chance) flood.