Intensification of subhourly heavy rainfall

Abstract

Short-duration rainfall extremes can cause flash flooding with associated impacts. Previous studies of climate impacts on extreme precipitation have focused mainly on daily rain totals. Subdaily extremes are often generated in small areas that can be missed by gauge networks or satellites and are not resolved by climate models. Here, we show a robust positive trend of at least 20% per decade in subhourly extreme rainfall near Sydney, Australia, over 20 years, despite no evidence of trends at hourly or daily scales. This trend is seen consistently in storms tracked using multiple independent ground radars, is consistent with rain-gauge data, and does not appear to be associated with known natural variations. This finding suggests that subhourly rainfall extremes may be increasing substantially faster than those on more widely reported time scales.