Washington is famous for being rainy with parts of the state getting more than 200 days of rain a year. This is something that may only increase as climate change is increasing precipitation in some areas. Studying how this is vital to better understand Washington’s future. Understanding how the precipitation has already changed in Washington based on historic precipitation data is vital to not only understand how much wetter it’s getting but also where is it getting more rain. This is vital for informing how the region will use water as Washington is a state with some of the deadliest landslides in history something that can be caused by days of heavy rain.
Understanding where this excess rain is falling will be vital to protect communities in the state. Some of the critical questions I will look it answer are how much and where is it getting wetter in Washington. And are there areas of Washington trending towards having frequent droughts? Can the areas with the biggest increases in rainfall be correlated with years with the most landslides in areas?
This research will be vital in understanding both climate change as a whole as well as the risks involved in not doing something to stop it. Therefore I think this project is vital to everyone and can serve as a tangible example of what climate change is doing. I hope that showing direct evidence of how the state is changing can also help inform state planning, as if we know rainfall is increasing in an area we can better plan for possible landslides.
Rainfall is a crucial part of the water cycle and determines much of our lives from what crops we can grow to where we build cities. Understanding rainfall is crucial for society to be able to properly plan and have our society function. “Generally precipitation is expected to increase as the world gets warmer” (Fountain and Kao, 2021), this is the consensus among climate scientists and is what we can expect for our future. One portion of understanding rainfall is understanding the water cycle and where the moisture comes from (figure 1).