How does precipitation affect weather

In , almost 20 inches of rain fell in the Nashville, Tennessee, area over three days. In addition to flooding, heavy precipitation also increases the risk of landslides.

When above-normal precipitation raises the water table and saturates the ground, slopes can lose their stability, causing a landslide. Washington state, which has a particularly high risk of landslides due to its terrain, is anticipating more frequent landslides as a result of climate change-induced increases in heavy downpours.

Excessive precipitation can also degrade water quality, harming human health and ecosystems. Stormwater runoff, which often includes pollutants like heavy metals, pesticides, nitrogen, and phosphorus, can end up in lakes, streams, and bays, damaging aquatic ecosystems and lowering water quality for human uses. Many cities in the United States use a combined sewer system, where both stormwater and wastewater are mixed, treated, and released.

Heavy rainfall can overwhelm such systems, sending excess stormwater, wastewater, and untreated sewage directly into the environment, risking public health and disrupting local fisheries. Relative frequency of once-in-five-year precipitation events falling over a 2-day period, averaged over the continental U.

S, Green bars in recent decades show these events have become more frequent, when averaged across much of the country. Many small businesses are not aware of the risks they face from changing climate conditions, and may not have plans in place to respond and recover from weather events. This issue is especially important in Maryland, where small businesses—defined as …. View Details Download pdf, KB.

Tags Resilience Extreme Weather. Cities and businesses are separately preparing for climate change and building their resilience to impacts. But they have not had guidance on how to work together, until now.

For example, too much rain or snowmelt water from melted snow at one time can lead to flooding. Living organisms, including crops, can drown in floodwaters.

Homes, businesses, even land can be washed away. For these reasons, many scientists have been monitoring precipitation trends. That is to say, they have been watching changes in the amount of precipitation falling to Earth.

Note that this is an average. There are many reasons for changes in precipitation. The leading cause is a change in temperature.

Many scientists believe an increase in temperature could lead to a more intense water cycle. The rates of evaporation from soils and water, as well as transpiration from plants, could increase. The amount of precipitation could also increase. Predicted changes in the water cycle differ according to the region of the planet being examined. Many scientists believe rates of evaporation will be greater than precipitation in the middle latitudes such as the United States.

Precipitation affects climate in several ways. It helps regulate air and land temperature, it determines plant life in the area that contributes to the climate, and it contributes to the formation of wind. To understand how precipitation affects climate, we must first understand what climate is. Climate is the long-term weather patterns of a geographic area.

Water heats up and cools down more slowly than land does, so on hot days, water cools the land and on cold days it warms the land.