Violent storms killed 7 people in China, if climate change is playing a role?

Meteorologist Matthew Cappucci spoke to CGTN Europe about the powerful storm in eastern China.

Transcript

00:00 China has been hit by extreme weather. At least seven people have been killed as typhoon-like winds

00:06 lash Jiangxi province. Three of them were blown out of their high-rise apartments as they slept.

00:12 The country's meteorological authority has issued a severe weather alert for southern and central

00:18 parts of the country. Well, let's talk to Matthew Capucci, who's a meteorologist based in Dallas

00:25 and Texas. Matthew, good to see you. These sort of stories are truly extraordinary, aren't they?

00:31 I mean, how do you describe this extreme weather? Yeah, most definitely. Spring tends to be a pretty

00:39 rough time when it comes to severe weather. In this case, you had cool dry air from Mongolia

00:44 and northwestern China clashing with warm moist air, kind of like summer-like warmth trying to

00:48 build in from the south. And that clash brewed very strong storms almost 20 kilometers tall.

00:54 Now, because the storms were so tall, they felt changing winds with height in the atmosphere. We

00:58 call that wind shear. There was a very strong jet stream dip overhead, and that helped stop these

01:03 into spinning, rotating supercell thunderstorms capable of producing very large hail, destructive

01:09 winds, and unfortunately, tornadoes too. Have these extreme weather events always happened,

01:14 or is it just that now we all see the media, so we feel we know more about it?

01:22 That's a very good point. It's a bit of both. So historically, we always do have a severe

01:25 weather season in China. It tends to be during April, May, and to at least some extent into

01:30 June as well in far northwestern China. However, I think we're seeing it more nowadays. Now,

01:35 there have been questions though if climate change is playing a role. And there are a couple ways to

01:39 answer that. Number one, temperatures are a little bit warmer earlier in the year, which means there's

01:44 a little more fuel instability, CAPE or juice to get these storms going. And number two, there's

01:49 more moisture in the air. So these storms can produce heavier downpours, leading to flooding.

01:54 We saw that a couple of years ago in Zhengzhou when they saw eight inches of rain in just a

01:57 couple hours time. It's about 20 plus centimeters worth in just a few hours. So there are a couple

02:02 fingerprints of climate change, but realistically, we do see these storms every spring.

02:06 And are these extreme weather events more damaging in urban environments? Does the

02:11 urban environment have an impact on how the weather behaves?

02:16 That's a really good question as well. Generally speaking, we tend to see the storms more often

02:21 hit rural areas simply because there are more rural areas than urban areas. But when a storm

02:25 like this impacts a target like an urban area, it's very problematic. Nowadays, too, because of

02:31 population sprawl, these targets are getting bigger. So it's more likely that you'll incur

02:36 damage, loss, et cetera, from a storm like this. The other thing worth pointing out, too,

02:42 is that sky rises, high skyscrapers can kind of funnel the winds between the buildings,

02:47 leading to acceleration. So the winds can be even stronger at times over 120 kilometers per hour.

02:52 I'm guessing we need to completely rethink infrastructure building around the world.

02:57 When people are being blown out of their apartments, we need to think about how we

03:01 build homes and roads and railroads and airports, don't we?

03:04 Most definitely. It's one of those things where we can plan for an event that might happen only

03:10 every 1,000 years, 1,500 years, 2,000 years. And a lot of people do plan for like a 1,000-year

03:15 storm. But when it comes to storms like this, they're so small-scale but so impactful that

03:20 they lead to extreme damage. Matthew, stay inside. It's much safer. Good to see you.

03:26 Matthew Cappuccio, a meteorologist from Texas.