Climate Central’s Urban Rainfall Claims Are All Wet

In its March 26, 2025 article titled “Heavier Rainfall Rates in U.S. Cities,” Climate Central (CC) claims that “Climate change is supercharging the water cycle, bringing heavier rainfall extremes and related flood risks across the U.S.” This conclusion is misleading at best, and scientifically irresponsible at worst. The evidence, when properly examined, points to alternative, well-known meteorological causes of localized rainfall increase.

CC claims that, “as the atmosphere warms with climate change, it can hold more water vapor, leading to heavier downpours—especially in urban areas.” This is easily explained by local urban meteorological factors unrelated to climate change.

To start, the CC article commits a common logical fallacy in climate reporting: correlation mistaken for causation. Yes, some cities have recorded increases in intense rainfall over recent decades, but that’s not the smoking gun for anthropogenic-driven climate change as CC would have you believe. Rather, Climate at a Glance provides a far more comprehensive and nuanced assessment of precipitation trends, showing that nationwide rainfall in the U.S. has not increased in an alarming or unprecedented manner. In fact, the entry on U.S. Precipitation shows that while total precipitation has slightly increased over the last century, there’s no consistent trend of intensifying rainfall that matches the hysteria being promoted.

Worse, CC completely ignores the well-documented Urban Heat Island (UHI) effect in their article. Cities are warmer than surrounding rural areas due to the heat-retaining properties of asphalt, concrete, and reduced vegetation—this is a basic principle of meteorology that’s been acknowledged for decades.

One of the leading higher rainfall cities CC mentions is Reno, NV., citing a 37% increase in rainfall since 1970 for the city. A simple experiment, done by Anthony Watts in 2008, conclusively demonstrated the strong UHI signature of the city, as seen below:

Warmer city surfaces create more localized convection, which can in turn drive more thunderstorm and precipitation activity over urban cores. Ironically, CC has an entire section of their website dedicated to UHI in U.S. cities, none of which appear in their article claiming climate change is “supercharging the water cycle” and rainfall for cities.

With CC ignoring the UHI factor in rainfall enhancement—in an article specifically focused on urban rainfall trends—is not just an oversight. It’s obvious journalistic and scientific malpractice.

There’s another major mechanism at play here that CC sidesteps entirely: urban air pollution. Cities are loaded with particulate matter from vehicles, industry, and heating systems. These particles serve as condensation nuclei—tiny seeds upon which water vapor condenses, forming clouds and enhancing precipitation. This isn’t new or controversial science. A 2004 study in Nature titled “Enhanced precipitation due to aerosol effects” documented how increased aerosols can enhance cloud formation and intensify rainfall, particularly in urban environments.

Moreover, the American Meteorological Society has long recognized this phenomenon. The AMS Journal of Applied Meteorology and Climatology published a paper in 2007 on “Urban Influences on Cloud and Precipitation”, highlighting how cities can create their own microclimates that influence local rainfall, both in amount and intensity. None of these well-established mechanisms rely on global climate change to explain city-specific rainfall trends.

Let’s also not forget the role of cloud seeding in weather modification—a practice that intentionally introduces particulates into the atmosphere to enhance rainfall. The fact that urban areas do this unintentionally through pollution suggests that rainfall trends in these areas are far from purely “natural” or “climate-change” induced.

CC’s flawed analysis ignores basic well-known urban meteorology. CC’s article is therefore a misguided narrative driven by model speculation. Their narrative—that climate change is making U.S. city rainstorms worse—is built on selective data, conveniently ignoring both the well-established Urban Heat Island effect and the rainfall-enhancing role of aerosols. It’s like blaming fever on the weather while ignoring the infection causing it. By omitting these critical factors, they present an oversimplified, alarmist view that serves political ends rather than scientific truth.

This kind of shoddy research for media consumption undermines public trust in climate science. CC claims to be an authority, yet their work shows a consistent pattern: cherry-pick data, ignore contradictory evidence, and blame everything on humans using fossil fuels causing climate change. Real science considers all variables, especially ones as obvious as localized urban heating and pollution. Until Climate Central acknowledges these fundamental factors, they’re not reporting science—they’re spinning a fake news narrative.

Anthony Watts

Anthony Watts is a senior fellow for environment and climate at The Heartland Institute. Watts has been in the weather business both in front of, and behind the camera as an on-air television meteorologist since 1978, and currently does daily radio forecasts. He has created weather graphics presentation systems for television, specialized weather instrumentation, as well as co-authored peer-reviewed papers on climate issues. He operates the most viewed website in the world on climate, the award-winning website wattsupwiththat.com.

Originally posted at ClimateREALISM