The STORMY-WEATHER project addressed a critical challenge in climate adaptation: improving understanding of how extreme storm hazards may change under a warming climate. While extreme rainfall is becoming more intense and short-duration downpours are increasing, major uncertainties remain regarding how atmospheric circulation, storm tracks, convection, and other physical processes will affect storm intensity, duration, frequency, and persistence. Existing studies have largely focused on changes in peak rainfall intensity over fixed timescales and on likely future outcomes, rather than plausible worst-case scenarios that often drive the greatest risks to infrastructure and communities.

The project develops a novel storm-type methodology to identify the physical drivers of change and generate physically plausible high-impact storm hazard storylines. Using the latest climate projections, including advanced convection-permitting climate models that better simulate short-duration extreme rainfall, STORMY-WEATHER examines both precipitation and wind hazards and their response to rising temperatures. The project investigates changes in storm characteristics, rainfall mechanisms, and large-scale circulation patterns, producing practical metrics and tools to support climate risk assessment and adaptation planning for flooding, infrastructure resilience, transport, and energy systems.