Winter Storm Juno blowing through New England may have been less severe than most meteorologists had predicted, but the snowstorm still left many people question whether the event may have been fueled by global climate change.
The powerful blizzard hit the northeast on Monday, January 26. Some meteorologists predicted the storm would be the most severe snowstorm in decades. Even if it did not live up to that early billing, the snowstorm did dump a good amount of snow on New Jersey, New York, and New England.
Extreme precipitation could become more common as global warming becomes more serious, some climatologists are warning. The northeastern area of the United States is expected to see more frequent and extreme storms in the future due to climate change, researchers determined. The southwest United States is likely to see the least effect on precipitation caused by global warming. That area will only see an increase of around five percent in the occurrence of such events, researchers calculated.
"Big snowfall, big rainstorms, we've been saying this for years. More very large events becoming more common is what you would expect with climate change, particularly in the Northeast," Don Wuebbles, a climate researcher at the University of Illinois in Urbana, said.
According to the 2014 National Climate Assessment report, severe storms have become 70 percent more common than normal in the northeastern United States. Warmer air temperatures result in increased evaporation, lifting additional moisture in to the air, resulting in greater precipitation.
A blizzard and ice storm in 2011 left millions of people around the northeast without power, for periods up to several weeks. Two years later, a blizzard left 25 inches of snow on Boston. In November 2014, regions around Buffalo, New York, we pummeled with six feet of snow, which fell over the course of three days, fueled by moisture from the Great Lakes.
Extreme storms in the northeast now release 71 percent more precipitation than the northeast than they did in 1960, according to NOAA. Five of the ten most severe blizzards to strike New York City 1869 have occurred in the last 11 years.
Heavy snowstorms are most common when temperatures hover around 32 degrees Fahrenheit, meaning warmer winters are likely to result in greater snowfalls.
"We can't make too big a deal of every single storm and say it is caused by climate change. But what we are seeing today is completely typical of what you would expect to see in a warming climate," Wuebbles told the press.
