(Above: Change in extreme precipitation events in southeastern U.S., from National Climate Assessment 2014).

Whatever your take on projections of sea level rise and global temperature increases (I’m extremely worried: these things are happening and we are responding much like the 2014 UNC Tarheel football defensive unit responded to threats, which is to say, hardly at all), and whatever your beliefs about the likelihood of future droughts in the southeast (I don’t think the data support any confident predictions one way or the other), it’s hard to ignore the trend to increased extreme precipitation events (see banner image above). The graph shows percent changes in the annual amount of precipitation falling in very heavy events, defined as the heaviest 1% of all daily events from 1901 to 2012. The far right bar is for 2001-2012. In recent decades there have been increases nationally, with the largest increases in the Northeast, Great Plains, Midwest, and Southeast. Changes are compared to the 1901-1960 average. (Figure source: NOAA NCDC / CICS-NC).

This trend makes the law and policy of stormwater management more important than ever before in this country, region and state.

Read More →