Abstract
The effects of global climate change on the intensity of tropical cyclones are yet to be fully understood due to the variety of factors that affect storm intensity, the limited time spans of existing records, and the diversity of metrics by which intensity is characterized. The 2017 North Atlantic hurricane season induced record-breaking economic losses and caused hundreds of fatalities, and for many represents a presage of what the future holds under warmer tropical sea surface temperatures. This article focuses on one such major hurricane, María, and answers the question of how this event compares to the historical record of tropical storms that have assailed the island of Puerto Rico since 1898. Comparisons relied on interpolated weather station total rainfall and maximum 24-h rainfall intensities. María proved to have the greatest 24-h rain intensities among all storms recorded in Puerto Rico, yielding maximum 24-h recurrence intervals greater than 250 years for about 8% of the island.
Highlights
Tropical cyclones (TCs) are amongst Earth’s most damaging natural hazards and their future effects are expected to proliferate due to demographic shifts, and increased intensity and frequency of the most extreme events[1,2,3]
Interpolations of the weather station data based on co-krigging analyses showed that Hurricane María (HM) equaled
The median ratio is within the 20–30% range previously described for TC-associated rainfall for PR12 and for the Northern Caribbean[11]
Summary
Tropical cyclones (TCs) are amongst Earth’s most damaging natural hazards and their future effects are expected to proliferate due to demographic shifts, and increased intensity and frequency of the most extreme events[1,2,3]. Site-specific understanding is crucial in improving our ability to predict the local expressions of global climate change on TC rainfall[7]. The maximum contributions of TCs to annual rainfall occur near 18°N14. This is where the island of Puerto Rico (PR) is located and where TCs have provoked copious rainfall[15] responsible for large numbers of slope failures[16,17], as well as world records in instantaneous, area-normalized peak flows[18,19]. Models predict higher TC rain intensities under most projected climate change scenarios for the North Atlantic[20,21,22] and for PR23. Recurrence intervals for any TC to make landfall in PR is about 5 years[15] but direct hits by major hurricanes (>3 Saffir-Sampson scale) have occurred about once every 50 to 60 years[37]
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