Stormy Weather: Assessing Climate Change Hazards to Electric Power Infrastructure: A Sandy Case Study

Abstract

Power system infrastructure is subject to damage from a wide range of extreme weather events, including hurricanes, tornadoes, lightning storms, snow and ice storms, floods, storm tides, heat waves, droughts, and more (see Figure 1). As climate change occurs, scientists expect extreme events to become even more severe in some locations, resulting in more intense precipitation; longer, hotter heat waves; higher-intensity hurricanes; higher storm tides; more ice storms; and so on.