This study published in Journal of Climate examines long-term trends in freezing rain across central and eastern North America.
Using geospatial and statistical techniques, and 8-decades of data for US and Canadian subdomains, this work first evaluates the performance of the European ERA5 reanalysis freezing rain variable to observed frequencies, indicating that the agreement is sufficient for further analysis.
Subsequently, several prominent modes of natural variability that influence North American climate are evaluated against regional freezing rain timeseries using Random Forest regression.
The results demonstrated limited overall trends (increasing and decreasing), despite a warming climate. One of the main reasons for this is due to the important role that natural climate variability plays in modulating the occurrence of freezing rain events.
Natural climate variability that promotes higher atmospheric pressure over the Pacific sub-Arctic regions appears to be strongly indicative of favorable conditions for freezing rain, particularly in the United States.
This work extends our knowledge of the important factors that drive seasonal to multiyear freezing rain variability.
Mullens, E. D. (2025). The role of natural climate variability in freezing rain occurrence across Central and Eastern North America. Journal of Climate, 38(24), 7491-7507.
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