Hurricanes can be monsters. They bring destructive winds and hazardous storm surge, and their floodwaters can engulf communities. But their drenching downpours can also translate to needed, life-giving rains; tropical systems make up a significant portion of the South’s average annual precipitation. Numerous studies have found that between 10 and 20 percent of annual rainfall for regions that border the Gulf of Mexico comes from named tropical systems or their remnants. Making up such a hefty portion of the gulf’s rainfall budget means tropical cyclones are a necessary staple of the region’s climate system. A 2017 paper in the American Meteorological Society’s Journal of Climate noted that “the proportion of [tropical cyclone]-induced rain is about [10 to 15 percent] at stations located along the coastal regions of the eastern United States.” They found similar […]