Paper Harvest Report
Date range: April 25, 2026
2 top-tier papers selected out of 54 total publications
Today’s Highlights
Extreme precipitation over the contiguous US is concentrating into fewer days with larger spatial footprints, with the eastern US seeing a rising frequency of large-area events — a critical finding for flood risk assessment. Separately, atmospheric rivers are shown to be a practically necessary precondition for severe convective storms and tornado warnings across the Southeastern US, strengthening the case for AR-based flood and severe weather forecasting.
Table of Contents
Top-Tier Journal Papers
Climatology and Trends in Spatial Scales of Extreme Precipitation Over Land in the Contiguous US
Authors: Trinish Chatterjee, Danielle Touma, Adam Sobel, R. M. Horton
Journal: Geophysical Research Letters · DOI: 10.1029/2025gl120662
Matched topics: seasonal
Extreme precipitation (EP) poses a severe risk under a changing climate. Here we use daily gridded precipitation data (1980–2024) and a connected‐component labeling algorithm to characterize the climatology and regional trends of daily EP spatial scale over land in the contiguous United States (US). EP event sizes follow a logarithmic distribution; thus, the largest‐area EP events disproportionately drive total yearly EP area. These largest‐area events exhibit different seasonality and have higher average intensities than smaller events. We find a widespread decline in small‐area EP events and overall days with EP, concentrating EP into fewer days per year but with larger areas on those days. In the eastern US, we find a rising frequency of large‐area events, driving significant growth in yearly EP area. These findings highlight the importance of spatially informed analyses in understanding the changing nature of EP for better climate risk assessments, adaptation planning, and economic loss projections.
Atmospheric Rivers Are a Frequent Source of Moisture Transport in Severe Convective Storm Environments
Authors: S. M. Bartlett, J. M. Cordeira, J. B. Houser, C. A. Davis
Journal: Geophysical Research Letters · DOI: 10.1029/2025gl120738
Matched topics: river, flood
Atmospheric rivers (ARs) are well known for their contributions to precipitation and flooding across the U.S. The present study explores the relationship between ARs and the potential for severe thunderstorms and tornadoes over the U.S. in both the warm and cool seasons during a 20‐year period from 2004 to 2023. A statistical analysis of severe thunderstorm and tornado warnings issued by the National Weather Service and AR events demonstrates that a majority of warnings over the Southeastern and Eastern U.S. are associated with ARs, especially tornado warnings. Conversely, given an AR event, a minority of AR events feature severe thunderstorm warnings or tornado warnings, with higher fractions in the warm season except for tornado warnings over the Southeastern U.S. It is concluded that ARs appear as a practically necessary, but not sufficient, factor related to the potential for severe convective storms, especially the issuance of tornado warnings in the cool season.
Statistics
| Metric | Count |
|---|---|
| Journals searched | 11 |
| Total papers fetched | 54 |
| Passed deterministic filter | 4 |
| After LLM relevance filtering | 2 |
| Rejected (not relevant) | 2 |
Papers by journal
| Journal | Papers |
|---|---|
| Geophysical Research Letters | 2 |
Filtering Criteria
Topics: hydrology, hydrologic model, river, runoff, streamflow, reservoir, water management, flood, drought, seasonal, land surface model, climate change, hydropower, surface water, irrigation, earth system model, estuary, coastal, freshwater discharge, river plume, ocean biogeochemistry, marine heatwave, paleohydrology, paleoclimate, Quaternary, Holocene, Pleistocene, fluvial geomorphology, river terrace, loess, drainage network, river capture, landscape evolution, luminescence dating
Fields: engineering, environmental science, computer science, geology, geography