Brace Yourself for More Intense Rains and Floods

The storms of today are not like those that wetted our ancestors. They’re throwing out quicker, more-sodden punches, with short periods of intense rainfall perfect for swamping urban areas.

So says a research team from the University of New South Wales that’s been examining three decades of rainfall patterns in Australia. After sifting through nearly 40,000 historical storms, they found that greater amounts of precipitation are being squeezed into ever-smaller bursts. To use a rough analogy: If a storm a century ago was like slowly pouring out a glass of water, one today is grabbing a Big Gulp and dumping it out all at once.