Severe weather affects Milwaukee like tornadoes, floods, heat
[ad_1]
As the Western United States enters fire season during yet another drought while the Gulf Coast begins what is likely to be a more active than normal Atlantic hurricane season for 2022, Wisconsinites are looking back on a relatively mild winter and wet, but not very dangerous, spring.
When tornado sirens sounded in Milwaukee on July 29, 2021, it was the first time in nearly eight years that county residents were warned to take shelter. Milwaukee’s last tornado was on July 2, 2000, when an F1 twister — a level associated with moderate damage — touched down in Oak Creek.
Relative to other parts of the country, Wisconsin can feel like a safe place to live, distant from areas that experience hurricanes, earthquakes, avalanches and wildfires, but that doesn’t mean residents should not be prepared for dangerous and costly weather events.
Wisconsin’s four seasons bring different concerns as the climate continues to change, Extreme weather events are probably going to be more common than in the past, said Paul Roebber, a distinguished professor of atmospheric sciences at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.
“People forget when bad things happen pretty quickly,” said Anthony Pennington-Cross, who is the Robert B. Bell senior chair in real estate at Marquette University. The public tends not to notice change as it’s happening, leaving them more susceptible to increased volatility in weather.
Heat waves can be dangerous
Roebber said to expect more heat waves like the one Milwaukee experienced in 1995 that was blamed for more than 70 deaths and indirectly linked to an additional 70 fatalities.
Projections for Wisconsin’s climate in the coming years look like current day Arkansas, he said. That would mean average temperatures in the 90s throughout the summer.
“You have to adapt to these changing conditions. A lot of it is about finding ways to become more resilient to change in climate. There are things that individuals can do and things that society as a whole can do to build resilience. The answer is thinking about the problem, and then finding a way to address it at a scale that’s large enough to make a difference,” he said.
Roebber hopes Wisconsinites will become more proactive about serious weather. That means learning and understanding evacuation routes in the event of floods or wildfires, having a designated area for the things needed in the event of a tornado siren and even creating an emergency go bag with important documents, medications, toiletries, food and water.
“There are so many connections in the system that we don’t fully understand yet. It’s really a much harder problem to understand those local details,” said Roebber.
More tornadoes are likely
Mark Schwartz, a climatologist in the Department of Geography at UW-Milwaukee, pointed out that the nature of tornadoes means that they affect a small area at one time, which can lead to people feeling like they don’t need to worry about them.
“It’s just a matter of probability any individual person in any individual home in Wisconsin doesn’t have a very high chance of being hurt by a tornado. Whereas if you’re along the Gulf Coast and a hurricane is coming, everybody within a very large area is going to be affected by it. It’s just a different kind of issue,” he said.
The frequency of storms that create the conditions for tornadoes, major damage and loss of life will continue to grow, Roebber said.
Additionally, Roebber foresees new weather-related challenges. As the climate zones shift northward, the area along the Illinois and Wisconsin border that seems prone to tornadoes would become more of an issue for Wisconsinites.
Related:Wisconsinites ‘took cover’ as 13 twisters damaged houses, barns, outbuildings, fire trucks and trees on June 15
Related:It’s tornado season in Wisconsin. Here’s what you need to know to help keep you and your family safe.
From flooding to drought
What happened this spring, with prolonged stretches of rain where it felt like Wisconsin was just stuck in a weather pattern for days or weeks, is a newer phenomenon that research hasn’t established yet, but is concerning, Roebber said.
“We’ve seen examples of really persistent weather patterns that seem anomalous to us. We don’t know if that’s related to climate change or not, but you tend to get stuck in this pattern, which used to get broken up more frequently. That seems to be something that happens here and might be something that becomes an issue, but we don’t know,” he said.
Flooding — and particularly flash flooding — is also an increasing risk that most Wisconsin residents, especially those in Southeast Wisconsin, have not had to contend with. The Midwest had a 40% increase in heavy rainfall events in the last 10 to 20 years, Roebber said.
A heavy rain in mid-June showed the danger involved, when a boy was swept into a rain-swollen drainage tunnel near South 27th Street and West Loomis Avenue and two men tried to save him. All three were later found dead.
Beyond the danger to people caught outside in those conditions, there’s concern for whether the city is prepared to handle those types of events.
“When we talk about infrastructure, it’s not just our bridges and our roads, but our whole underground drainage systems,” said Schwartz. “One of the hidden issues of climate change is that our whole infrastructure, all of our storm drains, were developed based on a climate of the past. If we start getting more rainfall — and not just more rainfall, it’s really specifically getting more intense storms with more rainfall, our storm systems aren’t designed for that. We’re going to have more flooding in urban areas simply because our underground infrastructure isn’t designed to handle it.”
“it’s not like they haven’t designed them well, but they designed them through a different standard.”
Where wildfires are a small concern in Wisconsin now, Roebber expects that the amplified hydrological cycle will also lead to more droughts.
“As that happens, that’s going to stress the forest and it’s more likely to lead to more fire weather occurring and more wildfires as a result of that,” he said.
Power losses from storms and overuse
Last August’s storm that brought down branches and uprooted trees across the metro area left some residents without power for weeks as utilities struggled to repair downed lines. Pennington-Cross would love to see cities bury power lines to prevent this from happening in the future, but said he understands it’s a massive undertaking.
The prolonged electricity outages led to an increase in purchases of backup home battery systems, said JD Smith, head of business development at Arch Solar in Plymouth. Requests for an estimate for them have easily tripled or quadrupled, he said and this year the company is on pace to triple the number of backup home battery systems it installed in 2021.
But concerns about electricity don’t only come with downed lines. Air conditioners are one of the most energy-intensive appliances in any household. They strain the power grid and are often responsible for rolling blackouts and can even damage the grid. The intense heat waves Roebber predicts would put immense pressure on Wisconsin’s power infrastructure.
After reports raised concerns about the likelihood of rolling blackouts this summer, We Energies and Alliant Energy postponed closing coal plants in Oak Creek, Sheboygan and Portage by 12 to 18 months.
According to a study published in Earth’s Future, a publication of the American Geophysical Union, Wisconsinites could experience nearly 12 days per summer without use of their air conditioner if no improvement is made to the power infrastructure or the efficiency of air conditioners in the next 10 to 30 years.
It’s not just local weather volatility that could cause issues for Wisconsin residents. More than 40% of the U.S. population lives in coastal-adjacent counties. So, while we here do not have to contend with rising sea levels, we are likely to see an influx of residents as folks seek safer places to live. Low cost of living and the appearance of safety from weather events could draw more people to the state, which would increase the load every part of our infrastructure would need to bear.
“That will change the profile of everything else. Where do people move to? The (concern is) the kind of pressure that puts on a community,” Roebber said.
A wider view of catastrophes
In addition to personal safety concerns, the way weather affects an area shows up in home values and insurance rates. Even without the projected transition in how Wisconsin experiences weather, insurance companies do not view Wisconsin as safer or less likely to have extreme weather events.
There’s a difference between what society considers a catastrophic weather event and what insurance companies do. For insurance purposes, a long cold snap, hail, a particularly strong or windy storm or heavy rains can all cause significant damage to homes, cars and property.
Setting up the right coverage is a way Wisconsinites can make sure they are prepared. “We highly recommend homeowners understand their policy before they have to file a claim,” said Joe Uebersetzig, regional product director with the American Family Insurance group. “Knowing what’s covered and verifying you have sufficient coverage will make things much easier should your home be damaged by severe weather or another cause.”
Risks will direct development
The impact of these natural events and concerns is affecting where developers choose to build.
“I think developers are going to be thinking much more carefully about the natural risks that they’re taking on. If you listen to developers, they’re more concerned about that than they were, say 10 years ago,” said Pennington-Cross.
In this instance, the public’s short memory can be a boon. If a catastrophic event happens but people view it as a one-time event, public perception matters. It wouldn’t affect values, he said. But repeated events start to seep into the public conscience and the marketplace.
On the other hand, as climate shifts, people adapt, and their behaviors change. Warmer winters are likely to lead to people being less prepared to manage extreme cold when it does happen, Roebber said. The rarer these events become, the more risk they pose as people forget how to navigate them.
Overall, the frequency of disastrous weather events is only going to grow, likely in each season, Roebber said.. Longer stretches of dire heat or cold. More strong storms.
“It’s not really obvious whether we’ll have more severe weather days, but it seems like the data are suggesting that the massive outbreak kind of days will increase in the future,” he said. “We have to adjust to that if we hope to be able to manage it.”
Journal Sentinel staff contributed to this article.
***************
About that home insurance
Our homeowner’s insurance rates in Wisconsin are low compared with other states. The top causes of property insurance loss for American Family Insurance in Wisconsin
• Wind and hail: 50% of property losses
• Fires: 21% of property losses
• Water: 15% of property losses
Here are some tips from American Family for dealing with those issues:
For wind and hail
- Inspect roofs regularly and after significant storms; look for curling of shingles
- Replace aging roofs to limit your exposure to severe weather and water leaks
For fire
Common causes of fires in Wisconsin are fireplaces, woodstoves and space heaters used for winter heating
- Regular maintenance on fireplaces and woodstoves will help prevent structural issues or buildup that may lead to a fire.
- Smart Home technology can help identify hidden electrical fire hazards.
For water damage
- Check sump pumps regularly during spring and heavy rains, and replace them as needed to avoid a water backup.
- Smart Home technology that monitors a home’s entire water supply system for leaks and vulnerabilities, or senses leaks and moisture outside the pipes, can help prevent or mitigate water-related claims.
[ad_2]
Source link
