Chesapeake Bay Climate Impacts Summary and Outlook: Spring 2019

MARISA Chesapeake Bay Climate Summary Winter 2018-2019 map

The spring season saw almost 40 tornadoes touch down across the Chesapeake Bay region, including a record-breaking tally of 16 tornadoes in a single day in Virginia. Spring temperatures were above average for most of the watershed, and some areas experienced rainfall of up to 200 percent of historical averages.

Read more, and use the interactive maps of climate projections, in the latest MARISA Seasonal Climate Impacts Summary and Outlook.

Highlights

A high number of tornadoes—nearly 40—touched down across the Chesapeake Bay region, breaking records in many states.
Spring precipitation was up to double historical averages in the northern Chesapeake Bay.
Spring temperature was above average for most of the Chesapeake Bay watershed.
The region could expect normal to near-normal hurricane activity for the 2019 summer to fall hurricane season in the Atlantic Ocean.
An analysis of multi-decadal changes in seasonal precipitation shows that the region has experienced increases in summer seasonal precipitation, as well as increases in the variability of fall precipitation.
An analysis of future projections of seasonal total precipitation suggests that increased precipitation, compared to historical averages, could continue.

Read the Climate Summary

The MARISA Seasonal Climate Impacts Summary and Outlook is a seasonal series produced by NOAA’s Mid-Atlantic Regional Integrated Sciences and Assessments program that details seasonal weather and climate variability and change in the Chesapeake Bay Watershed.

MARISA is led by the non-profit RAND Corporation, in partnership with researchers in Penn State University’s Earth and Environmental Systems Institute, and the Environment, Energy, Sustainability and Health Institute at Johns Hopkins University, along with support from researchers in the Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at Cornell University, and the Virginia Institute of Marine Science.