More likely is that it parks over the region like Florence. “And, if it stays over water longer, it will put more rain over us,” Levine said.
Source: NOAA
Brandon Lockett/Staff
Scientists later studied how much rain fell during Florence and found that an average of 17.5 inches fell in a “core area” measuring 14,000 square miles, land equivalent to about half of South Carolina.
When it comes to concentrated rain dumps, that multi-day deluge was second only to Hurricane Harvey, which unloaded more than 50 inches on Texas in 2017.
“Florence was absolutely unprecedented,” said Joshua Bregy, a Clemson University climate paleontologist who used tree rings to analyze changes in tropical storms over long periods of time.
Florence not only stood in records compiled by instruments, which reach back to about the 1850s, it was worse than storms hundreds of years before, he said.
A rapidly warming planet is supercharging these already powerful rainmakers, Bregy said. Warmer air holds more water, which means more rain when clouds let go of that moisture. With every 1 degree Celsius increase in the planet’s temperature, the atmosphere can hold about 7 percent more moisture.
“Climate change is a threat-multiplier, making storms rainier, making them stronger and slowing them down,” Bregy said.
Although Florence’s frog-drowning rains were brutal, that storm still packed less overall than the rain bombs from Irma and Matthew, which both dumped about 18 trillion gallons, according to estimates by Ryan Maue, a private meteorologist.
But those storms dumped their rain over wider areas: Irma hit an area from Florida to North Carolina, while Matthew’s reach was even greater — from Florida to New York.
Alicia Wilson, a hydrology professor at the University of South Carolina’s School of the Earth, Ocean & Environment, said persistent rain over days will likely drive visible flooding throughout the region, even in places that don’t normally swell with water during storm events. But hidden risks exist as well.
Source link : http://www.bing.com/news/apiclick.aspx?ref=FexRss&aid=&tid=66b1287f30bb42fdb0f03541c67d288e&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.postandcourier.com%2Fhurricanewire%2Fhurricane-debby-charleston-lowcountry-rain-flooding%2Farticle_392a8eb2-533a-11ef-b08d-37c4703e1f4f.html&c=3971942053274063828&mkt=en-us
Author :
Publish date : 2024-08-05 08:00:00
Copyright for syndicated content belongs to the linked Source.