{"id":475705,"date":"2026-10-01T09:17:26","date_gmt":"2026-10-01T16:17:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=475705"},"modified":"2026-10-01T09:17:53","modified_gmt":"2026-10-01T16:17:53","slug":"wrong-time-one-noreaster-isnt-proof-of-climate-change","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=475705","title":{"rendered":"Wrong, TIME, One Nor\u2019easter Isn\u2019t Proof of Climate Change"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"Illustration<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

From ClimateRealism<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

By Anthony Watts<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Satellite<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

In their article How Does Climate Change Impact Nor\u2019easters?<\/a> TIME magazine claims that a nor\u2019easter which struck the northeastern United States in mid-September illustrates how climate change is making powerful storms more intense. That\u2019s false. There is no evidence that the recent nor\u2019easter was at all unusual or represents a long-term climate change induced shift in the occurrence or strength of such storms. TIME\u2019s claims go well beyond what the evidence can establish about an individual storm and lacks support in data and meteorological records.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhile September nor\u2019easters aren\u2019t unheard of, they are uncommon,\u201d states TIME. \u201cAnd as the climate warms, research suggests that the strongest storms are also going to become more intense.\u201d TIME then uses speculative sleight of hand to link the recent storm to increasing number of billion-dollar disasters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The historical record and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change<\/a> (IPCC) show substantial natural variability in extratropical storms and low confidence in observed trends in their intensity, making TIME\u2019s attempt to turn a single weather event into a climate-change story scientifically unjustified.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The basic problem with TIME\u2019s article is right there in its premise. A nor\u2019easter is a weather event. Climate is the statistical behavior of weather measured over decades.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As Climate at a Glance<\/em> has explained<\/a>, individual hurricanes, floods, droughts, heat waves, cold snaps, and storms are weather. Long-term changes in their frequency or intensity can potentially constitute evidence of climate change, but one storm cannot establish such a trend. See the graphic below from the European Space Agency to visualize this.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Infographic<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

That distinction is fundamental to climate science, yet it increasingly disappears when a dramatic weather event presents an opportunity for a climate headline.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

TIME reports that this particular nor\u2019easter produced heavy rain, flooding, winds exceeding 60 mph, and coastal flooding in New Jersey. Those facts establish that a strong storm occurred. They do not establish why it occurred, much less demonstrate that human greenhouse gas emissions made it unusually powerful.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

TIME even acknowledges that nor\u2019easters are nothing new. The article notes famous storms including the New England Blizzard of 1978<\/a>, the 1993 \u201cSuperstorm<\/a>,\u201d and the severe Boston snowstorms of 2015<\/a>. Let\u2019s not forget the Great Blizzard of 1888<\/a>. Nor\u2019easters are a normal feature of East Coast weather and have battered the region throughout its recorded history.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

More revealing is an admission buried halfway through the article: \u201cScientists are still not 100 percent clear about how nor\u2019easters are changing due to climate change.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That should have been the beginning of TIME\u2019s analysis<\/em>, not a caveat quickly brushed aside before returning to claims of worsening storms.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The IPCC\u2019s Sixth Assessment Report on climate change provides no findings that extreme weather events, such as nor\u2019easters, are increasing in number of intensity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nor\u2019easters are extratropical cyclones, and Chapter 11 of IPCC AR6<\/a> specifically examines these storms. The IPCC reports \u201clow confidence in past changes of maximum wind speeds and other measures of dynamical intensity of extratropical cyclones.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is true for many weather events, as seen in the table below.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Table
Table. Summary table showing lack of weather event attribution from Chapter 11 of the IPCC AR6 report.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The IPCC also finds that there is low confidence in past-century trends in the number and intensity of the strongest Northern Hemisphere extratropical cyclones because of large year-to-year and decadal variability and limitations in the historical data.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Even more directly, the IPCC states that studies attributing changes in the most extreme extratropical cyclones are not available and that there is \u201coverall low confidence\u201d<\/strong> in attributing changes in individual extreme extratropical cyclone events to human influence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Somehow, TIME missed the IPCC\u2019s conclusion on this topic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

TIME blurs those two very different propositions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dollar losses are not a physical measurement of storm intensity. A storm striking today\u2019s heavily developed East Coast encounters vastly more homes, businesses, roads, vehicles, utilities, and expensive infrastructure than the same storm would have encountered decades ago. Inflation alone also increases nominal losses. Increasing billion-dollar disaster counts do not, therefore, demonstrate that storms have become meteorologically more severe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Climate Realism<\/em> has repeatedly addressed<\/a> this error in media reporting: increasing economic exposure and wealth can increase disaster losses even without a corresponding increase in the underlying weather hazard.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There is an additional irony in TIME publishing this story in September 2026.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While TIME cites a single nor\u2019easter to suggest that storms are intensifying, the Atlantic tropical basin has been experiencing an extraordinary lack of hurricanes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As of September 21, the Atlantic had produced six named tropical storms but not a single hurricane<\/strong>. It was the first time since 1914, 112 years ago<\/a>, that the basin had gone that far into the official Hurricane season without producing one. The climatological peak of Atlantic hurricane activity occurs around September 10, so this historic quiet occurred during what normally is the busiest part of the season.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

NOAA National Hurricane Center<\/a> records confirm the unusually weak activity, with the storms through mid-September remaining below hurricane strength. A strengthening El Ni\u00f1o and associated wind shear have been identified as important factors suppressing Atlantic hurricane development this year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Does that remarkably quiet hurricane season prove climate change has stopped affecting storms? Of course not. It\u2019s weather.<\/strong> And that is precisely the point<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A quiet Atlantic hurricane season cannot disprove long-term climate change, just as one powerful September nor\u2019easter cannot prove that climate change is making storms worse. Climate trends require decades of data, not whichever storm happens to dominate this week\u2019s headlines.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Indeed, TIME\u2019s own expert undermines the article\u2019s framing. Professor Mathew Barlow acknowledges that researchers are \u201cnot seeing any changes in the overall average\u201d number of nor\u2019easters and that the total number of storms \u201cmight actually be going down a little bit.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That admission deserves considerably more attention than TIME gives it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

TIME starts with a storm, asks how climate change made it worse, and then assembles quotations supporting that premise while relegating contradictory evidence to a few sentences. That\u2019s not how climate science is supposed to work. Nor is it how science journalism should work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A nor\u2019easter struck the Northeast. It produced heavy rain, strong winds, flooding, and disruption, all facts making the storm worthy of significant news coverage. But, there is no evidence whatsoever that climate change had any influence on the recent nor\u2019easter. Since neither data nor historical records suggest any significant changes in the formation or behavior or nor\u2019easters, TIME should make no such connection to climate change. The story goes beyond the news to disaster story telling. Based on this report, perhaps it would be more accurate to file TIME on the fiction rack at bookstores and newsstands.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In their article How Does Climate Change Impact Nor\u2019easters? TIME magazine claims that a nor\u2019easter which struck the northeastern United States in mid- September illustrates how climate change is making powerful storms more intense. That\u2019s false. <\/p>\n

There is no evidence that the recent nor\u2019easter was at all unusual or represents a long- term climate change induced shift in the occurrence or strength of such storms. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":121246920,"featured_media":475706,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_coblocks_attr":"","_coblocks_dimensions":"","_coblocks_responsive_height":"","_coblocks_accordion_ie_support":"","advanced_seo_description":"Explore the debate on whether recent nor'easters are proof of climate change, challenging popular claims with scientific evidence and historical context.","jetpack_seo_html_title":"Nor'easters and Climate Change: Debunking the Myths","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_seo_schema_type":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_wpcom_ai_launchpad_first_post":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[691845898,691845902,691845901,691818056,691845900,691820922,691845897,691841936,691845899,691845896,691826965],"class_list":["post-475705","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-1993-superstorm","tag-overall-low-confidence","tag-chapter-11-of-ipcc-ar6","tag-climate-change","tag-great-blizzard-of-1888","tag-intergovernmental-panel-on-climate-change-ipcc","tag-new-england-blizzard-of-1978","tag-noreaster","tag-severe-boston-snowstorms-of-2015","tag-single-weather-event","tag-time-magazine","fallback-thumbnail"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/paxLW1-1ZKF","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":428032,"url":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=428032","url_meta":{"origin":475705,"position":0},"title":"Claim: Strongest Nor’easters Are Getting Stronger. 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