Flood waters roll across Petit Street near Highway 20 Thursday, Nov. 23, 2017, as waters from the Skagit River rise in Hamilton, Washington.

(Scott Terrell/Skagit Valley Herald via AP)

At a Glance

Downpours from storms are dumping more wateracross the nation than ever before, with the Midwest and Pacific Northwest receiving the greatest increase in heavy rainfall. While some areas will get wetter, with heavier downpours, other regions will get drier.

Heavy rainfall from storms has increased by up to 70 percent in some areas of the United States since the 1950s and will only get worsein the coming years, thanks to global warming, scientists say.

The 2014 National Climate Assessmentreported thatacross the nation than ever before, with the Midwest, Pacific Northwest and the Upper Plains receiving the greatest increase in heavy rainfall. The Environmental Protection Agency notes that over the past six decades or so, more than any other region in the United States.

Andreas Preinof the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research (UCAR) and the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) says peak rain rates, which arrive when the core of a storm is overhead, have increased across the country by 30 percent over the past 60 years. And while some areas will continue to get wetter from heavy downpours, other regions will get drier.

Scientists say the increase in heavy precipitation events is directly linked to human-caused climate change.

"Precipitation responds to global warming by increasing," Angeline Pendergrass, a project scientist at UCAR, said at a conference last week, Business Insider reports.

As greenhouse gasses trap heat and warm up the planet, evaporation and subsequent precipitation increase.

This trend, known as an intensification of the hydrologic cycle, is only expected to get worse in the coming decades, which will inevitably cause more flooding.

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In 2017, rainfall from storms amounted to $145 billion in damage, according toMari Tye, who studies weather extremes at UCAR. Damage incurred from . The storm dumped.

"A future storm might cause a much, much bigger flood because it produces so much more water," Preinsaid.

In a 2017 study, Preinand his colleagues predicted an 80 percent increase in heavy downpours across the nation by the turn of the century and warned that currentflood guidelines, which are used in planning and building infrastructure, are likely too conservative.

"The combination of more intense rainfall and the spreading of heavy rainfall over larger areas means that we will ," Prein said in a press release. "If a whole catchment area gets hammered by high rain rates, that creates a much more serious situation than a thunderstorm dropping intense rain over parts of the catchment."