A Review of Historical and Future Changes of Extratropical Cyclones and Associated Impacts Along the US East Coast

Abstract

This paper reviews the historical and potential future trends of extratropical cyclones (ECs) along the United States (US) East Coast and western Atlantic, as well as potential changes in coastal flooding, heavy precipitation, and damaging winds. Most models project a steady decrease in the number of ECs for the US East Coast and western Atlantic region by the middle to later twenty-first century, while there is an increase in more intense (<980 hPa) cyclones and heavy precipitation; however, there is also been large interdecadal and interannual variability. Potential biases may exist in the models because of difficulty capturing: (a) the Atlantic storm track sensitivity to the Gulf Stream SST gradient, (b) latent heating within these storms, and (c) dynamical interactions at jet level. More work is needed to determine future changes in hybrid storms (e.g., Sandy 2012) and diagnostics to better understand the future cyclone changes in the models.