July 1, 2022

1 min read

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Wildfires Followed by Severe Rain Will Become More Common

Graphics show how the two weather extremes will more often pair up

By Clara Moskowitz & Jen Christiansen

Line charts show how coupled extreme fire and rainfall events are projected to increase by 2021 in the Western U.S.

Jen Christiansen

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Climate change tends to bring out the worst in the weather, be it extreme cold or heat, rain or fire. A new study found that the warming atmosphere increases the likelihood that a wildfire in the Western U.S. will be followed by intense rainfall. This confluence of events raises the risk of landslides and flash floods.

“Once you've had a wildfire burn through, you kill off all the vegetation, and you don't have any root structures there holding the soil in place, so it's a lot more vulnerable,” says University of California, Santa Barbara, climate scientist Samantha Stevenson, who was a co-author on the study.

The fires aren't causing the storms, but the same rising temperatures that lead fires to become more severe allow the atmosphere to carry more moisture, causing rain events to dump more water quickly. “We're talking about superstrong rainstorms, the 99.9th percentile,” Stevenson says.

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Credit: Jen Christiansen; Source: “Climate Change Increases Risk of Extreme Rainfall following Wildfire in the Western United States,” by Danielle Touma et al., in Science Advances, Vol. 8, No. 13; April 1, 2022 (data)

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Clara Moskowitz is chief of reporters at Scientific American, where she covers astronomy, space, physics and mathematics. She has been at Scientific American for more than a decade; previously she worked at Space.com. Moskowitz has reported live from rocket launches, space shuttle liftoffs and landings, suborbital spaceflight training, mountaintop observatories, and more. She has a bachelor’s degree in astronomy and physics from Wesleyan University and a graduate degree in science communication from the University of California, Santa Cruz.

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Jen Christiansen is acting chief of design and senior graphics editor at Scientific American, where she art directs and produces illustrated explanatory diagrams and data visualizations. She is also author of the book Building Science Graphics: An Illustrated Guide to Communicating Science through Diagrams and Visualizations (CRC Press). In 1996 she began her publishing career in New York City at Scientific American. Subsequently she moved to Washington, D.C., to join the staff of National Geographic (first as an assistant art director–researcher hybrid and then as a designer), spent four years as a freelance science communicator and returned to Scientific American in 2007. Christiansen presents and writes on topics ranging from reconciling her love for art and science to her quest to learn more about the pulsar chart on the cover of Joy Division’s album Unknown Pleasures. She holds a graduate certificate in science communication from the University of California, Santa Cruz, and a B.A. in geology and studio art from Smith College. Follow Christiansen on Bluesky @jenchristiansen.com

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Scientific American Magazine Vol 327 Issue 1This article was published with the title “Wild Weather” in Scientific American Magazine Vol. 327 No. 1 (), p. 80
doi:10.1038/scientificamerican0722-80
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