Cities don’t just change the landscape, they change the weather. According to a new study analyzing tens of thousands of rain events in Texas, whether urban areas make rain worse, lighter or simply different depends strongly on the type of storm.
The research, published in Nature, examines more than 40,000 warm-season storms that passed over or near Dallas–Fort Worth, Austin, San Antonio and Houston between 1995 and 2017. By sorting storms into distinct categories and tracking their three-dimensional structure using weather radar, scientists found that the four urban areas strengthen some storms while weakening others.
The findings help explain why previous research on urban rainfall has often produced conflicting results—and why blanket statements about cities being “wetter” or “drier” miss the nuance of how storms actually work…