GWX — Extratropical Cyclone Intensity

Extratropical Cyclone Intensity

Storms -- tropical cyclones, extratropical cyclones, and severe convective storms combined -- account for the largest share of both global weather/climate economic losses (about 56%) and deaths (about 27%), 1980-2025 (see Loss Normalization). Northern Hemisphere winter-season extratropical cyclone intensity (minimum central pressure) here comes from the CEDA/TRACK catalog (ERA5-driven), 1979-2022 -- the same source and algorithm the US dashboard's Northeast-focused variable uses, computed here over each storm's whole track. Storm counts are descriptive only; the catalog's severity pre-filtering makes them unsuitable as a trend metric.

Summary Judgment

Consistent with IPCC AR6

The most-intense-storm minimum-pressure metric shows no detected change globally -- matching AR6's low-confidence characterization of past extratropical-cyclone intensity trends.

IPCC finding (AR6 WG1 Ch.11 Executive Summary): "There is low confidence in past changes of maximum wind speeds and other measures of dynamical intensity of extratropical cyclones." Separately: "Mid-latitude storm tracks have likely shifted poleward in both hemispheres since the 1980s, with marked seasonality in trends (medium confidence)." — see the full Detection & Attribution comparison for every phenomenon this site tracks.

Extratropical Cyclone Intensity — Minimum Pressure

Annual

Annual most-intense Northern Hemisphere extratropical cyclone (bomb cyclone / winter storm), by whole-track minimum sea-level pressure -- the global-scale (well, hemispheric) counterpart to the US dashboard's Northeast-focused ETC intensity variable, from the same underlying TRACK catalog. Unit: hPa (lower = more intense).

Source: CEDA / TRACK catalog (Gray, Volonte, Martinez-Alvarado, Harvey 2024)

Computing trend…

Tracks the year's single most intense Northern Hemisphere winter storm by minimum sea-level pressure -- lower pressure means a more intense storm, so a detected trend toward greater intensity appears as a decreasing line. See Methodology for coverage and the Braer Storm validation check.

The single lowest minimum-pressure storm in the whole 1979-2022 record (genesis 1993-01-10, min MSLP 914.87 hPa) matches the Braer Storm — both the date and the pressure line up with the widely cited (~914-916 hPa) historical record of that event.