Northeast United States Set to Experience More Extreme Weather Conditions

A recent study by Christopher Picard '23 and Assistant Professor of Geography Jonathan Winter describing a predicted increase in extreme precipitation events was featured on Earth.com.

Earth.com writes:

"According to study first author Christopher J. Picard, the logic behind the forecast is pretty simple: as climate change ramps up the heat, more water vapor saturates the atmosphere. This elevated moisture sets the stage for an uptick in extreme precipitation.

[...] "Our findings show that this increase in extreme precipitation will be primarily driven by more frequent heavy rainfall events, not by the intensity of such events," explained Picard. The expectation is not that each storm will be more powerful, but rather, that there will simply be more days of heavy rainfall.

[...] Jonathan Winter, the senior author of the study and an associate professor of Geography at Dartmouth, has a history of examining heavy rainfall trends in the Northeast. His earlier work, which looked at data from 1901 to 2014, found a 50 percent increase in extreme precipitation events from 1996 to 2014. 

According to Professor Winter, this sharp uptick in extreme weather events has clear ties to climate change. "Building on our earlier work, we were particularly interested in determining how much extreme precipitation is expected to change across the Northeast in the future."

Read the full article at Earth.com here.