Step 1: Exploring Erie's Hazards
Back to project pageErie Climate Data
Erie County is becoming increasingly vulnerable to both the short and long-term impacts of extreme weather and climate variability. Recent examples of these extremes have included record rain and snowfall events, tornados, ice storms, and more frequent high wind events. CRANE worked with GLISA to compile downscaled climate data and projections specific for Erie County. Learn more about Erie’s climate data by clicking here.
Erie Extreme Weather Survey
The Erie Extreme Weather survey was designed to gauge the Erie community’s perceptions, experiences, and concerns surrounding extreme weather events. The results of this survey helped to shape the content and focus of the Erie Hazardous Weather Vulnerability Assessment by identifying key weather impacts and capturing anecdotal accounts of how extreme weather is directly impacting Erie’s residents. The results of the survey represent input from respondents living or working within the Erie region. Respondents encompassed stakeholders from industries such as agriculture, marinas, transportation, grocery stores and businesses, municipalities, natural resources, and residents of the area. To date, 115 people have taken the survey; however, it remains open as an ongoing way to collect quantitative and qualitative information about how residents and business owners are experiencing climate impacts.
Take the survey here.
Summary Document
This framing document was developed as a tool to summarize historical and projected climate information and highlight results from the Erie Extreme Weather Survey. The purpose of this document was to help set the stage for additional steps in the Steps to Resilience process. It provides background information on the project and project location, summarizes data from the survey, and includes five weather disaster narratives reflecting the five top weather risks identified in the survey. Each of the weather disaster narratives includes an introduction, a “benchmark” weather scenario, and a “credible worst-case scenario.” The benchmark scenario indicates a historical baseline event that occurred at some point in Erie County’s history. The credible worst-case scenario indicates an event that hasn’t yet taken place, but that is plausible given climate projection and weather data. These examples were researched and developed by members of CRANE with data and expertise taken from sources such as New York’s Coastal Resilience Index and Community Self-Assessment the National Weather Service, Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), the Northwest Regional Climate Center, and others. These scenarios were used as discussion points to frame the vulnerability assessment conducted in Step 2
