The Guardian, on Climate, 5 November 2026

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World’s wettest rainstorms are getting wetter, affecting flood and drought risk

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T he world’s wettest rainstorms produce about half of the global annual rainfall. Now a study shows that these intense downpours have become shorter in duration and fewer in number, compressing the same amount of rain into quicker and more extreme events, with implications for flood and drought risk. Chiyuan Miao and colleagues from Beijing Normal University in China analysed daily measurements between 1980 and 2022 from more than 19,000 rain gauges around the world.

They found that an average of about half of the world’s rainfall fell during about nine multi-day storms, delivered over a cumulative time of about 28 days. But they also found that since 1980 the average length of an intense storm has reduced by about 86 minutes a decade, cutting the overall time to deliver half of the world’s annual rainfall by just over 9.5 hours. The findings, published in Earth’s Future , show these changes are happening across all continents but with regional differences.

Europe and South America have recorded the strongest rate of compression of storms, with the wettest shortening by as much as 144 minutes a decade. Implications will also vary between regions and include changes to drought risk, flash flooding, water security, farm productivity, soil erosion and wildfire susceptibility. Explore more on these topics Climate crisis Weatherwatch Flooding Drought Extreme weather Water news Share Reuse this content

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About this analysis

The Guardian reports a Beijing Normal University study of more than 19,000 rain gauges finding that the storms delivering half the world's rain have become shorter and fewer since 1980. The article names the researchers, the journal and the period studied, gives concrete rate figures and keeps the study's regional differences. We found nothing to flag.

What it gets right

  • “Chiyuan Miao and colleagues from Beijing Normal University in China analysed daily measurements between 1980 and 2022 from more than 19,000 rain gauges around the world.”

    The article names the researchers, their institution, the period studied and the size of the dataset, so a reader can judge the scale of the evidence.

  • “The findings, published in Earth’s Future , show these changes are happening across all continents but with regional differences.”

    It names the journal and keeps the study's regional qualification rather than overstating a uniform global change.

  • “the average length of an intense storm has reduced by about 86 minutes a decade”

    It gives a concrete, rate-based figure from the study instead of a vague claim of worsening.

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