(WWJ) – A new study published this week shows rainfall is becoming more intense here in Michigan – as was pretty evident in last summer’s historic flooding – and most places across the country.
What’s causing that? According to the study published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, it could be due to climate change.
Speaking on this week’s “Weather Wednesday” segment on WWJ, AccuWeather meteorologist John Feerick explains why the rain seems to be getting heavier in Michigan.
“I think that study shows that it is. I don’t think this is the first study that’s actually shown that. I think it stands to reason that the climate is changing, so with the warmer temperatures that we’re seeing, warmer air tends to hold more water vapor, so when you can touch that off, when you have a trigger, certainly it stands to reason that you get more rain with certain events,” Feerick said.
With more heavy rain, does that mean we could be in for heavier snow this winter?
“It’s probably too early to speculate on that, but it stands to reason there certainly would be more, not necessarily more snow per se over a whole season,” he said. “But there could be more significant events, perhaps – more events with more snow. But it may be a situation where there’s less events in general.”
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Feerick said we had a pretty dry August and September in Michigan this year in terms of the number of storms, but it’s not out of the question that they still brought more rain.
“This is more of a situation where you get thunderstorms, they may dump a little bit more water than thunderstorms, say, 40-50 years ago. I don’t think this is a situation where we’re talking about more days with thunderstorms,” he said.
As for what lies ahead the rest of this fall, temperatures probably peaked last week when we climbed into the upper 70s, but that doesn’t mean we’ve seen the last warmup.
“I think there’s a possibility that we see another warmup say, middle to latter portion of next week,” Feerick said. “Maybe not quite as warm as what we’re seeing out there today, where we’re up near 70, but still there’s gonna be stretches for sure where we’re a little up above average.”
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