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Extreme Precipitation in New York & New England

An Interactive Web Tool for Extreme Precipitation Analysis

The climatology of very large precipitation events is a critical component of engineering design and regulations for structures and facilities that must withstand or protect against such events. These events can produce localized urban and widespread flooding with damage to property, degradation of water quality, and potential loss of life. On a national level, a comprehensive climatology of rainfall events has not been updated since the early 1960s

Past Extreme Rainfall Analyses

In New York and New England this is a concern as the current climatology excludes almost 50 additional years of data. The National Weather Service is using a regional approach to update the 1960s analysis with two climatologies completed for the southwestern and middle Atlantic regions of the U.S. The Mid-Atlantic analysis extends as far north as Pennsylvania and thus excludes New York and New England. In these states, several regional and state-specific extreme rainfall analyses were conducted in the 1990 and early 2000s, but even these analyses are over a decade old and differences in the data records used do not provide a consistent regional analysis of rainfall extremes.

Extreme Rainfall Since the 1960s

The previous climatologies have been based on the premise that the extreme rainfall series do not change through time. Therefore it is assumed that older analyses reflect current conditions. Recent analyses show that this is not the case, particularly in New York and New England where the frequency of 2 inch rainfall events has increased since the 1950s and storms once considered a 1 in 100 year event have become more frequent. Such storms are now likely to occur almost twice as often.

Web Site Features

A number of features are included in this website to make it compatible with the NWS analysis for the Middle Atlantic region and to enhance its usability. The design of the site and its products have been reviewed by stakeholders with the U.S. Natural Resource Conservation Service (NRCS), various state agencies, and private engineering consulting firms. The site includes estimates of extreme rainfall for various durations (from 5 minutes to 10 days) and recurrence intervals (1 year to 500 years). These data are interpolated to a 30-second grid. Confidence intervals for these values are also included as are the partial duration rainfall series used in their computation. Regional extreme rainfall maps and graphic products are also available. Precipitation distribution curves can be generated for each grid either directly or from the USDA NRCS Win TR-20 software, eliminating the need to use a static Type II or Type III curve.