Thunderstorms are moving East with climate change
As weather dynamics shift, the eastern seaboard could get nine more thunderboomer days; other eastern states could see as many as two weeks more.
The towering clouds, the thundering claps, the sudden, torrential downpours: The dramatic summer thunderstorms of the Plains states etch themselves into the memory of anyone who experiences them.
But a new study finds that climate change is likely to affect their flavor. By the end of the century, the commonplace, intense storms that deliver 50 to 90 percent of the southern Plains states’ annual water are likely to occur a little less frequently, while more thunderstorm days both weak and strong will drench the East and Northeast.
The southern Great Plains of the United States—around Texas, Oklahoma, and New Mexico—could see an annual drop of somewhere between five and 15 fewer thunderstorm days each year. (This applies to
