Extreme weather trends over the past 55 years have indicated a major swing in lower lows, and longer lasting highs which is wreaking havoc on weather systems at the surface. When systems and materials were established off the trends of the early 1900s, the considerations for worsening events were not anticipated to ever reach the events occurring now with increasing frequency and greater intensity. Planning for stronger, persisting drying winds more often, heavier onsets of rain and/or snow, faster moving wildfires, subsidence risks, sea level rise triggering saltwater intrusion, extreme temperature fluctuations, and of course erratic changes to our tropical weather are critical for operating in the coming decades.

Impacts for sectors can be direct through site damage, deteriorating equipment, rising burnout rates, or even to interdependencies like the supply chain, the energy sector in any number of ways, increasing societal unrest, or even geological failures all tied into extreme weather trends.

Workshop Host: Sunny Wescott, Chief Meteorologist