An unexpected item is blocking cities' climate change prep: obsolete rainfall records

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The disconnect between the kinds of upgrades a changing climate demands and the data available to communities is already imperiling lives. Heavier downpours are taking an increasing toll on cities, inundating homes and roads. Many cities are still building their infrastructure for the climate of the past, using rainfall records that haven't been updated in decades. Those federal precipitation reports, which analyze historical rainfall data to tell cities what kinds of storms to plan for, are only sporadically updated by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Now, as NOAA determines how to spend its own infrastructure bill funding, many cities are hoping the agency commits to doing regular, nationwide updates of its precipitation reports, known as Atlas 14, to provide a systematic snapshot of how storms have already intensified.

Still, those up-to-date records won't show how the climate will continue to change in the future. So many flood planners are also pushing NOAA to fund and release local forecasts of how rainfall is expected to intensify going forward, to ensure that infrastructure projects built today won't become obsolete as temperatures warm.

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In the absence of relevant information from NOAA, San Francisco and a handful of other cities around the U.S. have partnered with local universities and researchers for localized climate change projections. Other federal agencies already provide localized climate projections, like the U.S. Department of Agriculture's map showing how plant growing zones could shift.

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