Water cycle intensification affects solar builds in a diagonal line from New Mexico to New England
Several customers reached out to us after our previous tech talk post Federal flood data layers are obsolete — and that spells trouble for traditional solar farm planning . They wanted to know in more detail how their particular projects might be effected. While the algorithm we use is proprietary, we can share a major input to that algorithm — NASA Climatological Data — and how we use it. The map below shows areas where the water cycle is either intensifying (blue) or weakening (red) across the continental U.S., based on measurements taken from 1945 to 2014 (excluding 1975 to 1984): (Source: NASA Global Climate Vitals Project .) The more saturated and deeper the blue, the faster the water cycle churns in that area. This means more precipitation in all forms, heavier precipitation volume, and shorter storm duration. Acres most affected are on an imaginary southwest-to-northeast diagonal, starting with and including most of New Mexico; up through Texas, Oklahoma, southern Nebraska,...