'Unique and alarming': Engineers to be tested as rain events intensify

Australia's rainfall events are already becoming more intense with climate change, raising the risks of flashflooding and potentially exceeding the nation's engineering codes, a new study finds.

Intense rain events - an extreme example of which
 hit Toowoomba in Queensland in 2011 - are becoming
 more common, researchers say.

While it's long been understood the atmosphere holds about 6.5 per cent more moisture per degree of warming, climate models have largely not captured the impact on individual storms, said Seth Westra, an associate professor at the University of Adelaide’s engineering school.

Read the story from The Age by Peter Hannam - “'Unique and alarming': Engineers to be tested as rain events intensify.”