Hailstones and extreme precipitation generate substantial economic losses across the United States (US) and globally. Their strong association with short-lived, intense convective storms poses a great challenge in predicting and projecting their frequency and intensity. Limited understanding exists regarding how climate change and environmental factors such as intensified urbanization and wildfires affect these phenomena.

This presentation will summarize the work aimed at understanding the potential influences of anthropogenic warming, wildfires, and urbanization on severe convective storms producing significant amount of large hail (diameters >2.5 cm; baseball size) and heavy precipitation. Our approach combines model simulations at convection-permitting scales, observational data, and machine learning techniques.

Our findings reveal distinct responses of large hail to anthropogenic warming between the hailstorms developed under different types of synoptic-scale environments in the central United States. We find the western wildfires can notably enhance the occurrence of large hail and heavy precipitation in the central United States. Urbanization, on the other hand, can intensify convective cells and redirect the storm towards the urban area due to enhanced convergence at urban-rural boundaries. This storm path change allows the entrainment of anthropogenic aerosols in the urban area into the storm, further enhancing hail size and frequency. The insights gained from these studies have important implications for improving the forecast and prediction of severe convective storms and mitigating their impacts.