Climatology And Trends Of Annual Maximum Sub-Daily Precipitation In The Western United States
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https://doi.org/10.1016/j.wace.2026.100915 <-- shared paper
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“[The authors] examined the climatology and trends of these downpours that are highly relevant for flash flooding and slope failure impacts across the region. [Their] main finding? Using direct observations from ground-based stations, [they] observed a 10% intensification in extreme 1-hr rainfall amounts since 2000, with the majority of these increases occurring in the interior of the region during the summertime Monsoon season…”
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“HIGHLIGHTS
• WUS 1-hr AMP events typically occur during summer in the afternoon and evening.
• 1-hr AMP intensity has increased by 10.3% since 2000 across the WUS.
• Field-significant increases in AMP intensity at all subdaily temporal aggregations.
• Summer SMP decreased during 1980-2024, but increased during 2000-2024.
• Trends toward more favorable environments in summer (interior) and winter (California).
ABSTRACT: Short-duration precipitation extremes can threaten public safety and infrastructure by generating flash flooding and geophysical mass wasting events including mudslides and debris flows. Using two surface gauge-based precipitation datasets (1980-2024), [they] characterize[d] the climatology of annual maximum subdaily precipitation and quantify trends across the western United States (WUS) – a topographically complex region with widely varying precipitation regimes prone to flash flooding. {They found] that 60.7% of WUS stations, including the vast majority of those located in the continental interior, typically experience 1-hr annual maximum precipitation (AMP) during summer and during the afternoon and evening hours (12:00-23:00 local time). Although most stations do not show statistically significant trends in 1-hr AMP intensity over the full period of record (1980-2024), a significant 10.3% domain-median increase in 1-hr AMP intensity was observed during 2000-2024. These changes largely result from seasonal maximum precipitation (SMP) increases during summer over the continental interior coinciding with a trend toward more favorable summer thermodynamic environments for short-duration precipitation extremes. [They] also report widespread though statistically insignificant increases in SMP intensity during winter and spring in California since 2000 coinciding with increased column water vapor. These results are suggestive of potential recent intensification of subdaily precipitation extremes in a warming climate in the WUS despite a backdrop of considerable internal variability…”
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