Why Are Some Cities ATTRACTING Storms While Others REPEL Them?

[@RaieG]

I live in West Texas in what was once a verdant riparian Valley. Over the past 40 years I've watched swaths of green earth turned to Black asphalt or brown desert and yet they have no idea why it's hotter

[@ecurewitz]

And the asphalt is only one part of the equation

[@perfectallycromulent]

because they're not watching videos like this. they're working from a belief that god gave them the earth to use, and that if they use it like god intended, everything should be just fine. when you talk about this stuff, you're aren't just giving people a science lesson here, you're challenging their core beliefs. that's why its difficult for them to understand and change.

[@PaperSmudge]

Wind and Solar cause more environmental damage than fossil fuels when both are managed correctly. You have to destroy ecosystems to gets thousands of pounds of rare earth metals and battery dumps (since we don’t know how to recycle batteries) would cause battery acid to leak into the water table and rivers causing aquifers to be unusable and rivers/lakes to become dead zones. Also the sheer amount of land you have to use just to supply the world is of the entire state of Arizona. Nuclear is a far safer, environmental friendly and efficient source of energy.

[@danielcarroll3358]

@@PaperSmudge This is a cut and paste. The same FUD appears in answers to other comments here.

[@MarriedWithPizza]

Same thing in California Central Valley. Everything is dry and dead. Fire season keeps getting longer, the farmers need to use up all the water, or they lose the water. Insane.

[@rainydaywoman8997]

Well this makes sense. I live on a plain with mountains to the east. The clouds “stack up” against the mountains, then they drop precipitation, lighten up, and go over the mountains to the next valley.

[@victoriaeads6126]

We live right next to one of the ridges in the Blue Ridge, and we see all sorts of ways the weather is affected by the mountains, too. The rainbows are nice 😂

[@birdnird]

Austin, TX definitely has a rain repellent dome. I have seen countless storms from the west part, go north and south of the city, and merge again on the east side

[@esgee3829]

they didn't talk about the magnitude of the effect for h-town or atx. i'm curious how large it is now, but i guess to know i'll have to read the papers referenced...

[@ivanrodriguez268]

same in Houston!

[@user-lw3wl4ps7z]

San Antonio as well. It rains/storms seldom enough down here, but you can literally just watch the radar and systems just say "nope", unless they are already stable/strong.

[@danielzhang1916]

@@esgee3829 Houston gets hit worse because everything is covered and the water has nowhere to go

[@Padraigp]

I used to live at the South of a lake surrounded by mountains...the rain would form come down the valley and drop rain on our tiny village...nowhere else would have it all around just us not even the mountains where the rain came from or the lake where the water i guess came from just us! I visited on a sunny day and thought what a nice town then I moved there and it rained 345 days of the year!!! 😂 now I live near a place that has some metal deposits ..not iron i forget which metal and we attract thunder and lightning to always hit one side of town!! 😂the natives all would have known this and told you not to build your cities here or there i suspect.

[@waleedkhalid7486]

I am literally about to start a unit on lightning formation preceded by a unit on thermodynamics. This video is perfect to introduce the topic.

[@lo-kel]

Mountains cause changes to weather, why wouldn't a pile of giant buildings do the same?

[@nialeemaria]

Buildings aren’t nearly as tall….

[@lo-kel]

@ even hills have impacts on the weather.

[@shacktime]

@@nialeemaria The Saudis are working on that😉

[@filmbuffo5616]

One is bigger than the other by an order of magnitude.

[@shacktime]

@filmbuffo5616 Debatable. Massive urban sprawl creates heat islands that can completely alter microclimates in ways mountains don’t. Also, regional climates took millions of years to conform to mountains and valleys. Urban sprawl changes these in mere decades.

[@TaliaMellifera]

this is an intelligent layout of the dynamics & I appreciate the message about cities themselves following and sharing their masterplans, liveable, diverse, low-traffic cities.

[@anniegerlach2563]

As someone from St. Louis: we just turn on the arch and the weather goes away

[@wiezyczkowata]

🤣🤣

[@frederickheard2022]

Air pollution and impervious surfaces are the two low-hanging fruits that could make a huge difference in flooding impacts even if rainfall increases with particularly juicy storms.

[@rcpettengill]

The situation with Austin is probably more complex than presented in your story. Austin has long had a reputation as a tornado repellent, long before the city had a high rise downtown. The reason may be similar however. I’ve heard this attributed to the hill country topography along the Balcones Fault which runs through the western (up wind) part of Austin.

[@ecurewitz]

F the way meds are coming downslope, any storms tend to dry up. I live in a town with a similar effect

[@chrisschaeffer9661]

God hates Confeds

[@joshuaharper372]

I live at the top of the Balcones formation in south Dallas, and it has a similar effect (at least anecdotally for the past 50 years) in disrupting tornados.

[@victoriaeads6126]

We were in Austin in April because we traveled to Texas to watch the eclipse (good times, we were just able to see it despite the cloud cover over Fredericksburg). One thing that was clear even between Austin and San Antonio is that the urban center in Austin has more green spaces. We didn't get to Houston, but I wouldn't be surprised if there are fewer green areas there, too. I was really excited to see the Moonlight towers, btw, they are really neat!!!

[@darindooley4683]

Lived it and have seen the change over the last 30 years here in Katy west of Houston. We have a lot to learn.

[@nicholaslogan6840]

NO, we have enemies to defeat. Corporations created all these problems by lying to people and changing laws they should never have been able to influence. The rest of us can't help using gasoline, plastic, etc because everything in the world is designed to be wasteful and become obsolete, all in service of driving 'the economy'

[@jerrymckittrick3039]

The St. Louis urban heat island seems to repel storms. Many times storms will split as they approach the city, and immediately after the front passes through to Illinois, storms and tornados will pop up again. Was hoping this would be explained in the video since St. Louis was on the title illustration. Thanks for the great weather videos Maiya!

[@RobertSaxy]

They gave a possible answer to this at the end of the video, they didn’t mention St. Louis but talked about how for yet to be understood reasons it seems that cities that have a trapezoidal shape to their developed areas seem to repel storms, they even said the storm splits just like you described. And I to will add my thank yous to Maiya and the team for these videos

[@ldbarthel]

@@RobertSaxy Totally anecdotal, but it seems to me that the storms that track along I-44 are more likely to split than those that track along I-170. (Storms along I-70 are typical west to east, but storms along I-44 tend to be associated with the clockwise rotation of tropical storms in the Gulf.) This lends credence to the trapezoid observation, due to the orientation of the city and the rivers. Storms tracking along I-70 basically encounter a semi-circle, while storms along I-44 encounter more of a trapezoid with curved sides.

[@RobertSaxy]

@ how anecdotally intriguing, thanks for the sharing of your observations

[@Madmun357]

Correction... Tropical Storm Harvey dumped rain on Houston. Hurricane Harvey tore through Rockport, TX then weakened, moved out over water again, then landed over Houston...as a tropical storm.

[@mikeg9b]

Yes. I went out on the porch several times during Harvey, which I wouldn't have done in hurricane-force winds. It wasn't that windy, but the rain was unreal.

[@allgood2981]

I watched it rain heavy nonstop from my porch for more than 8 straight hours without stopping. I couldn't believe it as my neighbors and I watched the reservoir fill up & overflow.

[@Madmun357]

@@mikeg9b I grew up in west Texas, so seeing the rain in Houston during those flooding events was almost incomprehensible for me. My mind couldn't make sense of it

[@chrisconklin2981]

I live in a semi-urban area of Florida. The ground is very sandy so water is absorbed very quickly. One notable feature is that retention ponds are build to catch road water runoff.

[@shacktime]

Yup. But as seawater continues to encroach and seep into your bedrock it’s gonna wreak havoc.

[@chrisconklin2981]

@@shacktime True. It's called saltwater intrusion. Here in Florida the bedrock you talk about is pours limestone. Called the Floridan aquifer, it is one of the best in the world. The trick is to keep this limestone filled with freshwater that resists the saltwater. Retention ponds aid in this effort. Unfortunately, over pumping well water lowers the groundwater level leading to saltwater intrusion.

[@PenguinInguinLodge]

Houston resident here. We get almost all our summer time rain from the Gulf. That is something absent in Austin. That’s probably more of a factor than the shape of the city or anything else talked about here.

[@ScottTempler]

and for those not in the know, San Antonio is just south of south of Austin Central Texas so generally would affects Austin can affect San Antonio depending on the storm size or lack of

[@johntouchet7178]

Proximity to the Gulf of Mexico probably contributes to higher humidity in Houston, while Austin seems to sit closer to the center of the "heat dome" that cooks the central plains in summer, and the central jetstream powerfully pushes dry air across Austin before hitting the wall of gulf humidity near the coast. Water runoff differs as well, because Austin sits on a large geological formation of karst limestone -- allowing water into the ground more readily. Houston sits on the Gulf Coastal Plain, underlaid with clay soils which take longer to absorb water, even where not covered with concrete or asphalt. I don't dispute the effects described by your scientists, I merely want to point out that the complications far exceed what you described.

[@ernestsmith3581]

The story presents a complete misrepresentation of Texas weather. Austin gets around 20-30 inches of rain per year; always has. Houston gets between 40 and 80, depending on where in town you are and whether the year is wet or dry; and it's ALWAYS been that way. They are in entirely different climactic regions. Austin is near the southern end of the Great Plains, and Houston is in the Eastern Forest climactic zone. If one were making a study of how humans have changed climate, I cannot think of a study more apt to generate erroneous data than comparing these two Texas cities.

[@aliciajeffcoat5627]

Our house flooded in Harvey. We lived in friendswood tx and will never live near a creek again.

[@AudraK]

From coastal Georgia, I can say storms have gotten worse. We evacuated maybe 3 times 20 years ago but have had to evacuate at least once a year since the past 5-8 years. Not to mention the road I live on used to flood constantly until we raised the road 6inches. We then had no issues with flooding until this year. This is the first time water has gone over the road since being raised years ago. It just gets worse and worse. Slowly. But worse nonetheless Hell downtown Savannah floods after a light sprinkle. The city can’t handle regular rainfall. With these extra storms, downtown has had its ass handed to it far too many times recently

[@benjamincornia7311]

That flooding may have more to do with rising sea levels. When sea levels rise, it also raises the water table which increases flooding in coastal areas. I recommend moving further inland before the property market collapses.

[@johnnymichael1804]

​@@benjamincornia7311you gonna tell that to the Obamas too?

[@benjamincornia7311]

@@johnnymichael1804 I will if I see them. The real estate collapse has already started in some areas.

[@danielzhang1916]

cities were never meant to be on the gulf coast, Houston was built on plains so the water gets stuck

[@benjamincornia7311]

@@johnnymichael1804 Trump will also lose Mar-a-Lago.

[@theautotoyboxfollowyourdre9722]

In Houston even the weather is getting stuck in traffic.

[@dc2guy2]

gold 😂😂😂😂

[@michaelangulo1853]

Funnie

[@duB420Grass]

I live in an area of Cleveland that is built around and maintains a natural drainage system. We also have permeable sidewalks in most our commercial districts. The only flooding here is when the 100 plus year old sewers get backed up because we can't fix them because we keep sending money to cities rebuilding in disaster/flood prone areas.

[@ECBPhotography]

What about the fact that Houston is 30-60 miles away from the gulf and Austin is significantly less humid?

[@durandalo11]

my man out here calling storms "Juicy"

[@dc2guy2]

😂😂😂😂

[@nolongerlistless]

"Juicy" and "juicier" are fine by me, but "more juicier" makes me angry, because it is a mistake that is being propagated by internet.

[@Doodleman227]

I took a class with him in college, interesting guy, he was pretty funny in some of his approach to explain things or get the class to engage.

[@Jul-66]

Albuquerque does this, where the air rising out of the Rio Grande Valley creates a "snow hole" over the Metro and the mountains and Belen get all the snow.

[@tomasmondragon883]

I don't know if it's so much an Albuquerque thing as it is a mountain and valley thing. The weather bubble over Los Lunas and Bosque Farms is much more pronounced than it is over Albuquerque. (North) Albuquerque only has mountains to its east while the towns to the south are bracketed by volcanoes to the west and mountains to the east. The chain of volcanoes to the west of the central Rio Grande Rift Valley ends north of Belen.

[@tomasmondragon883]

I don't know if it's so much an Albuquerque thing as it is a mountain and valley thing. The weather bubble over Los Lunas and Bosque Farms is much more pronounced than it is over Albuquerque. (North) Albuquerque only has mountains to its east while the towns to the south are bracketed by volcanoes to the west and mountains to the east. The chain of volcanoes to the west of the central Rio Grande Rift Valley ends north of Belen.

[@Jul-66]

@@tomasmondragon883 Those town/villages are part of the Metro. Belen could be considered an outer suburb, but seems to be outside the snow hole.

[@l0gh0rn1]

This is so fascinating. We are seeing more flooding in Houston but certain neighborhoods get it worse. We need more studies to plan cities better. Use super computer models to predict where extreme rain events are more common and disincentive people from building there. The shape of Austin downtown needs to be studied better and implemented here in Houston. The problem with Houston is there are multiple areas of tall buildings. There are as many tall buildings in Gallerias as Downtown.

[@TaliaMellifera]

there's a lot of landscape study about what is making cities liveable and what not; the local governments must introduce them more and more..!

[@PaperSmudge]

It’s not the layout, it’s just the Houston is a swamp. There need to be more drainage systems tho,

[@Demopans5990]

At the same time, having purpose designed public transit can allow a city to continue to function in all but the absolute worst conditions. An elevated rail system doesn't care about floods for one.

[@niqhtt]

Now lets be realistic.. the majority of people that vote here don't believe science anyway.

[@danielzhang1916]

The problem is creating areas that the flood waters can drain into, that's how you recover faster

[@garrenosborne9623]

This is great research & it offers a few useful possibilities taking advantage of the effect, with judicious modifications of the built environment: 1. yes use the effect to deflect dangerous storms. 2. but harvest storms of water, via retro-fitting drainage to treatment to new city induced farm land.

[@ScottTempler]

I felt here in San Antonio that unless there's Large hurricane on the gulf. we don't get any rain. All the rain coming from the north gets blocked by the Hill country

[@inappropriatejohnson]

Thank you. Too bad the governors of Texas and Florida won't see this.

[@DarkPesco]

And the governors of Georgia, Alabama, Louisiana, South Carolina, North Carolina, Tennessee......

[@hennyHBK]

Govt knows they jus don't give a Fuck, Especially Big Oil in Houston

[@PaperSmudge]

Wind and Solar cause more environmental damage than fossil fuels when both are managed correctly. You have to destroy ecosystems to gets thousands of pounds of rare earth metals and battery dumps (since we don’t know how to recycle batteries) would cause battery acid to leak into the water table and rivers causing aquifers to be unusable and rivers/lakes to become dead zones. Also the sheer amount of land you have to use just to supply the world is of the entire state of Arizona. Nuclear is a far safer, environmental friendly and efficient source of energy. Have a good day

[@danielcarroll3358]

@@PaperSmudge Boy! Is that a pile of FUD! Battery recycling is profitable and there are several firms doing it right now. It will be a while before there is a need for more battery recycling because they have turned out to last much longer than originally thought. I'll bet you are one of those who think EVs have to have a new battery every few years. They outlast the car and then have a second life in fixed applications.

[@BlackDot-xyz]

Dems are controlling the weather to try & stop Trump from helping Putin save & protect Ukraine!!

[@jamescox7007]

In Sudbury Ontario, if you watch the radar you can see storms break apart and form past the city. While south and north stay intact..

[@jrm78]

One problem which made flooding worse in Houston was the development of the wetlands in and around the city itself. Healthy wetlands act as a sponge soaking up excess rainfall, but they have become tract housing and parking lots, the runoff quickly floods the streams and rivers. And it is the people and businesses in the newly developed former wetlands which receive the brunt of the damage.

[@mirhasanoddname]

Not american but I've noticed this comparing my hometown to a city 20 minutes away. It's nice to finally have an explanation for it, thank you!

[@danielzhang1916]

we've known about the heat sink, but we haven't had enough data for a correlation

[@arlingtonguy54]

I left New Orleans after having my house flooded during Katrina and moved to Western NC that was supposed to be to climate safe. We learned differently recently during Hurricane Helena.

[@asrr62]

yeah hills create bad flash flooding which is what happened there.

[@sandydiller4828]

Other than the four years spent in Boston, I lived 50 years in the city of Chicago and the last seven in SW Michigan, about 3 miles from Lake Michigan. However, I currently live 3 blocks from a smallish lake that feeds Lake Michigan, and for some reason, that lake stops the big booming storms that come across the big lake. I have watched my former city experience TEN tornadoes with two touchdowns - one in my old neighborhood 😳 - and yet my area gets spared most of the time. Lake effect snow otoh, well, it’s going to be a FUN winter! It’s getting drier here, with rain coming more in bunches rather than steadier events. Chicago has spent $$$ over the years retrofitting older buildings with garden rooftops, and my former employer is responsible for the last 40 years of success completing and maintaining the deep tunnel and reservoir project, successfully meant to direct combined sewer flow away from city streets during rain events. But it’s impossible to lessen the heat literally coming off the high rises. So yeah Chicago is a big dome.

[@jamesanderson5268]

One thing I've noticed living a good part of my life on the eastern side of rivers, bad weather coming from the west and if there's a river like the Illinois River for us right now (20 miles to the west), the river seems to suck the power out of the storm. While the west side of the river gets really bad thunderstorms, they tend to die out and give us on the east side only showers. One time while in the USAF, we were stationed at Scott AFB IL. There were some tornadoes in the suburb of St. Louis but those tornadoes disappeared before they got to Scott but they hit a small town 10 miles to the east of Scott AFB. Meteorologists say that is not a thing but we seen it time and time again. Rivers seem to suck the power out of storms.

[@MrSymbolic7]

Man Made Wether !

[@RonaldPetrin]

Cool topic wise we all need to get hip to.

[@victoriaeads6126]

This all makes so much sense. I hope urban planning is already taking this data into account. How Phoenix will continue to be habitable eludes me, though. They are in a valley with extremely dry air. There's just nowhere for that heat energy to dissipate. It's a lovely place, but eventually I think people will decide it's not worth it.

[@aellalee4767]

First year in university I was in a basement suite in a city. My geography professor told us the section of town I was in would eventually flood when a massive once in a decade storm hit. I moved to higher ground and that storm hit less than 6 months later. I would've lost everything, but I didn't even realize it was happening because I wasn't paying attention to radio or social media and just walked to work and home and had been sleeping during the storm. Since then I've picked places to rent in part based on geography. I would wait for a geographically safer place to come available. I did this again when I'd moved and that city got the first of it's now annual atmospheric river events. I was on the third floor on a hill, no problem. We got such bad snow that same year the metropolis shut down in lots of sections and I was able to just walk to the grocery stores and banks nearby. The house I've bought I made sure was on a hill, has no history of major floods like nearby, and while we get wind storms the worst of it hits outside of town but no records of the worst ever hitting here since people have been recording that information. I cannot stress how important it is that people look into these things. There are so many places that cities and towns approve for housing than should not be approved before you include climate change into the conversation.

[@平和-v1z]

Great episode!

[@rkozakand]

I live in Omaha. It has long been observed that storms seem to avoid the city.

[@dasstigma]

Yes and she just explained to you why you observed this. Because you did not explain it.

[@theautotoyboxfollowyourdre9722]

Prices so High in Austin even the weather is like oh Hail NO!

[@abcqwerty01]

Thank you for your video. I have an idea, why not convert concrete footpaths back to its native or original terrain? Cars needs asphalt roads, but humans do not. Footpaths in front of residences can be looked after by the residents themselves. Public areas can be looked after by the local councils.

[@nateavish1892]

People who need mobility supports (walkers, wheelchairs, etc) have a hard enough time with bumpy sidewalks, or even most brick surfaces. Thankfully, though, there are ways to design the built environment to allow people to enjoy it AND to support effective water drainage :)

[@abcqwerty01]

@@nateavish1892 I was just thinking about those who may have mobility issues needing smooth footpaths. Thank you for your idea.

[@aldraysmith4357]

I'm from Richmond,Virginia this happen this summer a local meteorologist was explaining this phenomenon.Urban heat island effect .

[@grahamlindsay1263]

If you haven't been part of a natural disaster, then just imagine not having power for a minimum 10 Days. Inability to flush your toilet for 3 weeks unless you put the water in there. No cell service, your car radio gives you news updates, this occurs to all of your neighbor's, throughout your municipality and your county north south east and west you are smack dab in the middle. What can you do to get yourself ready? Will you pay attention to when you need to be ready? Will you cooperate?

[@zimbabwe_twinnedwithanfield]

This is my childhood 😂.

[@drewcarter5435]

This is B.S . I have lived in houston all my life and i can tell you that storms use to be the normal thing here until they started tearing down all the trees. Houston is supposed to be a tropical area which means is supposed to rain here often, that's not the case any more as we get less and less precipitation every year unless a sever storm comes, and that's a big if. Also the bad flooding is due to the increase in building and tearing down of the trees. Flooding used to be minor before the all the building and expansion. People need to stop coming here and move out toward rural areas, there's to many crowded in this area and to much concrete for a tropical area

[@DavidDominguez-xf6mp]

I live off i30 in west ftworth we always notice in our household that storms coming from west Texas always seem to miss us and head in a north east direction towards what is considered tornado alley in north Texas we have a daughter in that area and we always call her ahead of time.This happens about 80% of the time on average.

[@missedinformation7068]

The diurnal cycles of heat islands were first investigated in major European cities by Renou (1868) and Hann (1885), who observed 3-hourly and daily maximum/minimum temperatures. Their work evolved with the first hourly observations made in urban and rural areas by Alfred Angot (1896).

[@ageh4chou]

Columbus, OH. I've watched countless storms seem to break around the city, then go on to damage other parts of the state. The worst storms I've experienced here have knocked out power for days, but I fear that a rare 'direct hit' would be devastating.

[@UserName-ts3sp]

Another thing for Columbus... There's an unglaciated hill between Springfield and Columbus. It helps slow down and break up storms that hit Dayton and points west.

[@ageh4chou]

@@UserName-ts3sp Bless those Ice Age survivors. Today we had a few hours of gusts over 30mph and it knocked out power to almost 6000 people in my neighborhood alone for several hours. I really do worry that this city isn't ready.

[@boomerbear7596]

In Texas we have this term for it, specifically the idea of cities repelling storms. The local meteorologists in Amarillo call it the "Amarillo effect" and I've grown to apply this term to anywhere rain's avoiding or even as a verb (e.g. in the usage "the storm Amarilloed" if rain misses us).

[@stephenriggs8177]

Born and raised southeast of Houston in an area that was strangely isolated from the most devastating weather events. I loved thunderstorms. They led to flooded streets, which might leave your car stranded, but I never saw floodwaters encroach more than a few feet over our grassy front lawn. Even hurricane Alicia was pretty trivial, in our neck of the woods. But I haven't lived there in 25 years, and the concrete sprawl that I left behind is far bigger, now. (Houston is incredibly flat, so there's nothing to constrain growth except for Buffalo Bayou/The Ship Channel.)

[@johnchambers8528]

Thanks for the video about the warming effect and how it makes a difference to cities. I live in southeast Pennsylvania and we get hot and humid summers. This sometimes causes really bad downpours of rain. While I have only experienced occasional small flooding in my basement, it has caused bigger problems for others in our area. One of the simple things I feel that could be done is to provide more green space to cool and let water be absorbed. For example when new developments are built or shopping centers many are almost pure asphalt. Why can’t they provide small islands between sone of the parking areas with grass and trees to both provide shade and water absorption.

[@omostim2385]

I feel like Houston usually repels storms. I watch storms on radar raging from the west only for them to fizzle out when they get here then start back up to the east of us. I used to be the guy saying “looks like we’re gonna get some rain” but now I just wait and see quietly lol

[@ifeelikedyeing]

I am so worried about my community flooding at some point! This conversation is so important and should be alerting to a global degree

[@bigwev101]

They completely ignored San Antonio, which is 100 miles south of Austin and 200 miles west of Houston, a city that repels storms and is dramatically dryer and hotter than both Austin and Houston.

[@0tolerance583]

I noticed Austin has a special safe space in between the hurricanes and tornados. I thought it was primarily the distance from the coast and tornado belt, but suspected the cities surrounding it caught the storms, but this video really confirms the city interaction with the weather.

[@0tolerance583]

The ice storms are something else, though... nothing like snow

[@lordraiden5398]

To experience this first hand just drive past a large golf course or park in the evening during the summer with windows down or on a motorcycle. It is about 15° cooler.

[@ianthemechanical829]

so what this means I am not getting rain or storms like houston in austin ever again? this is ridiculousness and BS, this is very frustrating as I love storms.

[@rockys7726]

One of the reasons why I moved to Austin. No hurricanes, no tornadoes, no earthquakes and only small chance of forest fire.

[@WaterWaver-fy8de]

No ocean

[@kaiqiwei3628]

Austin is too expensive and the terrain is bad for city development.

[@rockys7726]

@@kaiqiwei3628 yeah it's gotten a lot more expensive but no different than the rest of TX. But the view from the hills are spectacular.

[@rockys7726]

@@WaterWaver-fy8de Hence no hurricanes...

[@michaelangulo1853]

Flash floods are a problem in hill county

[@RazorFoxDV]

I live in the Norfolk, Virginia, area and I'm wondering if our city is a storm deflector like Austin. I personally love a good storm and so often, I'll see an uninterrupted line of storms coming in on the radar which then promptly breaks up over the metro area. There'll be storms immediately to our north, west, and south (east is the ocean), but a noticeable empty patch over us and, as a storm lover, I find this highly frustrating.

[@danielzhang1916]

it depends on the wind patterns and how the metro area is laid out, but it could be

HTX is east of the 100th and close to the coast. Plus, it's surrounded by refineries that have regional disasters every few years. Instead, I live near the 100th and away from the coast where there are minimal risks. No deep dive needed.

[@SephieRothe]

I’m a Houstonian and work in Horticulture and we have to explain to clients that their chill hours (an approximation of some chemical reactions plants use to determine if winter is done, certain plants need a certain minimum amount of chill hours to flower and fruit) vary with how close they are to the city center. The effect is large enough that it determines which fruit trees cultivars are appropriate in which parts of the city, so the heat island is something we factor a lot. We also watch the weather so we have seen storms slow down and get trapped. I’m assuming these phenomena were also responsible for Tropical Storm Allison sitting over us and becoming the first storm to never make Hurricane that got its name retired?

[@velvettedelaney]

Love this series! I’m learning so much ❤

[@rodneyadamson8270]

An area from me in Bulverde is a area that would pour down rain but not rain inside of a half mile area 😊here in Tx

[@petermiesler9452]

0:40 That question, 'Is it possible we could impact weather' underscores our historic disregard for learning about Earth systems. Is it possible, it's unavoidable that packing high rises together will impact weather patterns on all sorts of levels. How could it, not? It was our duty to be curious and learn about those sorts of things. Instead we were too self absorbed to pay attention to nature, that environmental thing. We wholeheartedly embraced progress and technology and always refused to consider the other side of the progress coin, the costs, the damages inflicted to humans and biosphere - the trajectories we were creating, unintended consequences, the party was too much fun to think of that. We chose to dismiss, pretend we could ignore. Bad call that one.

[@danielzhang1916]

there was a reason the natives never lived close to the gulf, they knew that storms would come

[@brotherted9212]

I’m sorry, but the explanation for Austin’s relative drought is supposed to be the shape of that small area of downtown high rises? I’m just not buying that. The less than 1 square mile downtown area can’t be scaring away the moisture throughout all of the much, much larger Austin metro area, including suburbs & ex-urbs.

[@luxxt.3408]

Yes, born & raised New Yorker and I have noticed the storms are increasingly worse especially those flash thunderstorms during the summer months. Now that the city is considered a humid subtropical climate, I noticed it gets so hot and muggy some days, you know it’s going to downpour.

[@danielzhang1916]

not just storms, heat waves are getting worse, we just had one last month in California

[@Roboticgladiator]

I know that area NW of San Antonio now seem to repel rain showers. Time and time again I've seen approaching rain showers split and avoid the area.

[@lysandroabelcher2592]

By "city", when talking about Austin, Dr. Niyogi really means DOWNTOWN ! That's an important note because it's often the higher buildings, but that's not necessarily the case beyond USA and Canada!

[@tasteychackras7023]

Thornhill, Ohio. Stg everytime I went there bad storms everywhere but they were on droughts all August

[@tracybeck1328]

The annual Sturgis Rally in South Dakota has storms and rain about 4-5 days into the event every year. I’m not really shocked to learn the sudden massive increase of vehicle exhaust might affect the weather. I’ve had a front row seat to watch it since I moved to the Black Hills in the mid 1990’s.

[@sportykev]

this is so fascinating

[@ErikaCrist7749]

My current city repel rains. It's a heat bubble since the current mayor (4 years in charge and just got 4 more now) has a habbit of ordering trees to be cut. Never planting a new one. So it's regular to rain around, on the fields outside the town, while on the inner parts we just get the casual light rain. It's a really hot town, reaching easily 38-40ºC and only dropping below 25º some 3 months of the year. Basically, a to-be desert

[@lianagheorma92]

I wish California would use this info to get us more rain!

[@corlisscrabtree3647]

Thank you 🙏🏼

[@anderander5662]

I live in eastern Oklahoma and it seems our rainfall is increasing compared historical averages.

[@urbanstrencan]

Interesting topic covered, great video PBS

[@johnkarjalainen8003]

Yes, adapt, research, respect, and cooperate with planetary forces and with all Earth’s creatures, a good advice to y'all chicks and fellas ... This changed mindset is going to be humanity's best protective umbrellas ...

[@annem7806]

We have a manmade heat island w the downtown of Austin. I've watched the clouds part & mive needed rain away from us. I've been here 40 yrs. Seen the difference. Miss the costal showers that used to blow thru to Austin.

[@joltjolt5060]

By that logic all the skyscrapers on the beaches of Florida should stop hurricanes. Meh.

[@dasstigma]

Yet, they don't. Looks like your logic is flawed.

[@360sts]

Houston has been in a drought for three years, straight. We get most of our rain in bigger storms. It rarely rains here now. If a cold front comes through there is little to no clouds and or rain, literally rains for 10-15 minutes or it only sprinkles. It's almost, as if, there is a dome over the city. East of Houston will get the bulk of the rain. They call it a "rainy day" if we get a passing shower, and that is what we get most of the time. It rained(for most of the day) two days in a row at the end of July, it did not rain like that again until the end of October, for one day, and then it doesn't rain again for three to five weeks or longer. It's a miracle month if it rains twice in one month here now. I bet it rain more in Southern California than it does in Houston.

[@oneperson5760]

Yes, I have been affected by rain in an urban area. My small city did not keep its storm drains or pumping stations maintained, nor its stormwater drainage canal properly cleared out. So our home flooded from Hurricane Gustav, 2 days after the storm. So we moved from in town and bought land with a slope to it, unlike our flat land in town. Our house is on a ridge at the top of the slope now. When it rains heavily, as in a tropical storm, I can see the water filling the creek down below the house and the water rises, but it does not come near our house, it drains away from our house. I do not trust urban planning for adequate drainage during storms, because the city always finds storm drainage less important and fails to maintain infrastructure, preferring to use the money for something else. So I moved to a place with natural drainage which does not need maintenance.

[@feliciabaham5446]

As a Houstonian, our trees are disappearing...concrete has replaced them

[@victoriaeads6126]

Which city in SE Asia was indicated by that huge storm increase?!! Scary stuff!!!!

[@GlennTXstate10]

I agree with the premise but the Harvey example left out the front that stalled the hurricane and didn’t let it pass resulting in days of extra rain.

[@Miami.grackle]

Interesting. I live in Miami. In this area, a limited example can be seen. I’ve noticed when watching high resolution satellite loops, the urban heat effect can sometimes be seen affecting cloud development. During our rainy season (May-October) days that have very light winds, absence of earlier nighttime and/or nearby precipitation, and clear skies are best to observe the effect. As the typical development of cumulus clouds begins, heavily developed roads can be traced. For ones familiar with this city, 27 and 37 Ave, LeJeune Road, Flagler St, and US 1 are locations that have an earlier/ more concentrated formation of cumulus. As time goes on, these become obscured from adjacent cloud formation, sea breeze boundaries, and other factors. Not sure how much, if at all this urban factor is increasing/decreasing rainfall locally. By the time showers develop, this pattern seems to be overwhelmed by prevailing regional conditions. Most notably, sea and land breezes, which quickly delineate cloud development and concentrate precipitation, especially when clear weather and light winds are present.

[@Miami.grackle]

Interesting 2: Not so sure about the connection between the Houston’s urban area and rainfall from Harvey. Tropical storms/ hurricanes by their very nature eliminate the opportunity for localized precipitation development by warm ground, on a massive way, with associated rain bands- large in size and fast-moving. The scale of directional winds in these storms alone reduce the urban effect. There is an argument with surface roughness enhancing rainfall, locally. Mountainous terrain does influence tropical weather systems. Some truly incredible amounts of rainfall falls in such regions when these storms occur. Indeed topography is a factor. In the case of Harvey, extreme rainfall was the result of high precipitation cells moving inland within slow moving (or stationary) bands circulating a large storm-halted by region wide steering currents. Additionally, those high precipitation cells were moving inland in a northwest direction. If urban roughness had a measurable effect, rainfall maxima should be around/ downwind of these areas. Highest precipitation totals occurred just southwest of Houston, and in a large swath between Houston and Beaumont. NW moving precipitation did not move over highly urbanized terrain in either case. The atmospheric effects (large scale) and increased water temperatures are major factors involved with this incredible rainfall. Urban area precipitation increase is plausible with typical Houston (and Miami) warm season weather conditions. Both cities have indeed seen increases in annual precipitation. In Miami, and likely Houston, water temperatures are a huge influence. In my area, weak sea breezes result in showers moving slowly, and when encountering a synoptic SW wind flow, pinned close to the shore. This is where Miami is located. Warmer water temperatures reduce the contrast between land and sea temperatures. Less contrast means a weaker sea breeze. This reduction in wind keeps storms from moving as far inland, away from Miami. Looking at changes in annual rainfall in Southern Florida, these increases are near the coast, not inland. I have not even included the inherent quality of higher temperatures hold more water. I do wonder, however, if the ocean becomes ever becomes warm enough that land and sea temperatures in my area equalize. In that case, a major source of precipitation would then be eliminated, decreasing precipitation. My head hurts. Great video, in any case.

[@michaeldenzer6024]

Great info! Radiation might attract it too...

[@libertyblueskyes2564]

WEATHER ENGINEERING has been around since the late 1800s

[@josephteller9715]

Really wish this was more in-depth and had more detail. Like many cities, we are fighting with where I live with politicians and the developers that are influencing them who want to change our zoning laws & ordinances and increase the heights allowed for buildings and in the process reduce also the amount of Green Space and soft surfaces for absorbing precipitation and using a region wide drought (the worst one in 200 years) as an excuse as to why we don't need to worry about storm runoff issues, despite sitting a short distance from the ocean and having rivers that run thru our city.

[@TehSymbiote]

I live in Houston, so I'm curious to learn about this.

[@H.O.P.E.1122]

Can a portion of the urban rain water be captured, stored, and used for agriculture or industry needs, etc?

[@DanielWatson-vv7cd]

Seems like a combination of factors. Urban island effect, ozone particulate, and the Sky island (via tall buildings) affect.

[@delorbb2298]

Except, Houston used to flood before there was urban sprawl. Rachel Maddow showed the footage of a huge flood from the '60s, but she erroneously linked it to the sprawl too. I think that we shouldn't look at the flooding and temperatures only. What I've noticed is that seasonal changes aren't happening when they used to. The rainy season here in Houston occurs later than in years past.

[@ArnoSchlick]

Brilliant content, thank you!

[@homedeezyfasheezy5662]

They definitely picked the right city in Austin for an example of storms drying up near cities. You can literally watch the radar every time a storm comes through and can almost guarantee the storm will lighten up or dissipate once it hits Austin. However when it does rain hard a lot of time the storms can be pretty violent causing damage to trees and flash flooding usually occurring around the month of May.

[@joeanderson8839]

Driving in Atlanta has become a nightmare. It has always been a bad dream. But this is ridiculous.

[@tariq_al_fahim170]

It's really common in Dhaka, more so central Dhaka gets 30mm more rain than surrounding areas and most localized thunderstorms start above the city. So yeah the city can create its own climate

[@vesawuoristo4162]

Thanks

[@alveolate]

i've got a question... how do experts come up with an "estimate" for how much the damage done by a natural disaster costs?

[@MorganHJackson]

I'd be really interested in seeing what effect trees have. They'd cool a place down, but also release water which might help build storms.

[@danielzhang1916]

trees and natural drain areas would help a lot, it's about the water having somewhere to go

[@MiguelY22]

Hello from Houston

[@chrisschaeffer9661]

Trump gonna deport you. Too bad you voted for him

[@RonaldPetrin]

Answer is: Absolutely! If we have the will power to see the initiative through to real policy then action beginning with plan proposals, feasibility plans and final work plans and the necessary funding. See it through y’all!