by The strongest Nor’easters – destructive and often fatal storms that hit the US east coast with paralyzing rain, snow and flooding – are charged by the effects of climate pollution.
Nor’easters, which usually form between September and April, are driven by the temperature contrast between cold arctic air from the north and warmer, damp air from the Atlantic.
They are a big threat to densely populated cities along the east coast. The past decades have been picked with such devastating Nor’easters that some of the nicknames are known that sound like disaster film titles.
The “Sturm of the Century” in March 1993 was one of the most fatal and most expensive people ever recorded. It packed more than 100 miles per hour, in some places almost 60 inches snow and killed more than 200 people.
“Snowmageddon” in 2010 triggered more than 20 inch snow on parts of Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia and West Virginia, killed 41 people and left hundreds of thousands without power.
Michael Mann, climate scientist at the University of Pennsylvania and author of the study, was caught in a hotel room in Philadelphia in a hotel room in a hotel room in Philadelphia for three days. It was this experience that first aroused his curiosity about how these storms could be influenced by global warming.
Fifteen years later he believes that he has some answers.
A man shoveled on Silver Spring, Maryland, snow on February 6, 2010. The storm, called “Snowmageddon”, extended from Indiana to Pennsylvania and in parts of New York and North Carolina. – Jewel Samad/AFP/Getty Images
There is a general consensus in a warmer world, since the Arctic increases faster than the rest of the northern hemisphere, which means that there are fewer temperature contrasts of the storms.
However, what was unclear is what will happen to the intensity of these storms, which tends to be understaffed, Mann said.
To answer this question, the scientists used historical data and a cyclone tracking algorithm to analyze Nor’easters between 1940 and 2025 and bring together a digital atlas of these storms.
They analyzed a total of 900 and found the maximum wind speed of the most intensive Nor’easters since 1940 by around 6%, according to the study published on Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
This may sound small, but it increases the damage that a storm can. An increase in wind speed by 6% corresponds to an increase in the destructive potential of the storm by 20%, said Mann. “That is substantial.”
According to the analysis, the rain and snow rates drained by these storms have also increased by about 10%.
The reason why Nor’eaners intensify is the “basic physics,” said Mann. Warmer oceans and air mean more evaporation and more moisture in the atmosphere, which is turned out in the form of intensive rain or snow.
The damage that these storms can cause make it decisive to understand better how they will change in a hotter world, added man.
The storm “Asche Wednesday” in 1962, for example, led enormous devastation on the east coast and caused a total economic loss that corresponds to tens of billions for today’s money. It “done as much damage as a big landing hurricane,” he said.
The results also indicate that the flood risk can be underestimated in many cities on the east coast, according to the study. “Nor’easters have been neglected, and this is another contribution to the increased coastal risk that we didn’t really focus on,” added man.
Jennifer Francis, senior scientist in the Woodwell Climate Research Center, which was not involved in the study, said the results underline the need for better preparation.
“Coast communities in the northeast, in which Nor’easters should set up strikes and draw attention … Proactive preparation is less expensive than recovery after the storm,” she told CNN.
The results are also important because it shines a light on the different possibilities of how the climate crisis is taking place, said Juda Cohen, a climateologist who was also not involved in the study.
The effects “can be contragtuit, including the idea that climate change can lead to episodic increase in the severe winter weather,” he told CNN.
Even if the world warms up and the snow period shortens in many parts of the USA, there will still be periods with strong snowfall and intensive cold, said man. “Individual events can integrate a greater blow.”
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