Temporally compounding heatwave–heavy rainfall events in Australia

Abstract

Natural hazards often occur in combination with other natural hazards rather than as isolated events. While some combinations of hazards are well studied and their physical connection is increasingly understood, other combinations have received considerably less attention. High temperatures are known to be an important component for conditions that lead to heavy rainfall; however, sequences of heatwaves followed by heavy rainfall are not well understood, especially in a compound event context. Here, we analyse heatwave–heavy rainfall events across Australia using rainfall observations at hourly resolution. Our results show that heavy rainfall is more likely to occur if preceded by a heatwave, demonstrating that heatwave–heavy rainfall sequences should be seen as temporally compounding events. In particular, many regions in Australia experience both more frequent and more extreme wet days immediately following a heatwave. This behaviour is strongest in coastal regions, especially on the Australian east coast. These findings highlight the need for heatwave–heavy rainfall sequences to be studied as compounding events, as future changes in either hazard is likely to have impacts on related risks such as flash flooding.