New research highlighted by AGU Eos finds that extreme storms near the equator are responding to climate warming by becoming spatially larger and more persistent. This means individual storm systems cover more area and last longer than they would in a cooler climate.
The combined effect of these two changes is a clear increase in total rainfall volume per storm. Notably, the study reports that peak intensity—the most extreme rainfall rate within a storm—remains unchanged. The added rainfall comes instead from the storm's expanded footprint and extended lifetime, not from stronger convective cores.
These findings point to a shift in how tropical extreme precipitation is delivered under warming: not necessarily as more violent downpours, but as broader, longer-lasting events that accumulate greater overall rainfall.