Downscaled Projections of Tropical Cyclone Precipitation in the U.S. Gulf Coast

Hurricanes present a multifaceted threat to communities and are a growing concern in the era of anthropogenic climate change. The warming climate increases the uncertainty of hurricane predictability, complicating hazard assessment and preparedness, especially in vulnerable regions like the Gulf Coast of the United States. This study aims to investigate the hurricane precipitation hazard in the regions of Gulf Coast of the United States. We apply the Columbia Hazard model (CHAZ) model to downscale tropical cyclone (TC) projection from 10 climate models in the phase 6 of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP6). We derive TC precipitation along the resulting synthetic tracks using the Tropical Cyclone Rainfall Climatology and Persistence (R-CLIPER) Model to characterize future TC precipitation under different climate change scenarios. We find that, in the U.S. Gulf, changes in TC precipitation intensity are associated with an increase in major (category 3-5) TCs, generated from the equatorial Atlantic. In addition, an eastward shift in track density suggests an equal shift TC induced precipitation in future climate scenarios.