Science Source

Timothy M. Hall, James P. Kossin

npj Climate and Atmospheric Science

Published date June 3, 2019

Hurricane stalling along the North American coast and implications for rainfall

States that the average speed of tropical cyclone (TC) translation has slowed since the mid 20th century
Reports that North Atlantic (NA) TCs have become increasingly likely to “stall” near the coast, spending many hours in confined regions
States that the stalling is driven not only by slower translation, but also by an increase in abrupt changes of direction
Computes residence-time distributions for TCs in confined coastal regions, and finds that the tails of these distributions have increased significantly
Shows that TCs stalling over a region result in more rain on the region
Finds that, together, increased stalling and increased rain during stalls imply increased coastal rainfall from TCs, other factors equal
Finds a significant positive trend in coastal annual-mean rainfall 1948–2017 from TCs that stall, and verifies that this is due to increased stalling frequency
Makes no attribution to anthropogenic climate forcing for the stalling or rainfall; the trends could be due to low frequency natural variability
Regardless of the cause, the significant increases in TC stalling frequency and high potential for associated increases in rainfall have very likely exacerbated TC hazards for coastal populations