Future Changes in Midwest Extreme Precipitation Depend on Storm Type

Abstract Midwestern U.S. extreme precipitation is associated with multiple storm types including mesoscale convective systems (MCSs) and/or training thunderstorms, tropical cyclone (TC) remnants, and winter storms. Anthropogenic warming is expected to increase climatological precipitation globally,...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Tyler J. Mercurio, Christina M. Patricola
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Wiley 2025-03-01
Series:Geophysical Research Letters
Subjects:
Online Access:https://doi.org/10.1029/2024GL113126
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Summary:Abstract Midwestern U.S. extreme precipitation is associated with multiple storm types including mesoscale convective systems (MCSs) and/or training thunderstorms, tropical cyclone (TC) remnants, and winter storms. Anthropogenic warming is expected to increase climatological precipitation globally, however, there may be little correspondence with regional storm‐based changes. Furthermore, uncertainty remains in precipitation‐temperature scaling due to use of convective parameterization in most global models. In this study, we investigated historically impactful extreme precipitation events from multiple types of Midwest storms using the Weather Research and Forecasting model at convection‐permitting resolution. We simulated five‐member ensembles of historical hindcasts and experiments representing the storms in the future using the pseudo‐global warming method. We found that future precipitation changes depend on storm type, with increases near Clausius‐Clapeyron (CC) for winter storms, no consensus for MCSs and/or training thunderstorms, and sub‐CC increases for TC remnants. This research highlights the importance of considering storm type in future extreme precipitation projections.
ISSN:0094-8276
1944-8007