Overview

I am a Research Fellow based within Exeter Climate Systems and funded by the Willis Research Network. My current research is on European winter storms, with focus on constructing and evaluating present day risk. A further goal is on understanding the impact of climate change on future risk estimates.

Since June 2023 I have been working with the Royal Meteorological Society as their Science Engagement Fellow for the Insurance Industry. This role involves driving engagement between academia and the insurance sector, providing resources, understanding collaboration, and increasing awareness of research being undertaken by both sectors. Please get in touch via email for more information or visit https://www.rmets.org/special-interest-groups/insurance.

My main research interests are:

• Extratropical cyclones and structures
• Storm tracks
• Extreme wind and precipitation events
• Model representation and biases 
• Understanding and modelling historical and future variability in extreme events

I was previously working on the Emergence Project where I investigated the representation of storm tracks and extratropical cyclones in different groups of CMIP6 models. Recently, we updated future projections of extratropical cyclones and this research fed into the latest assessment report from the IPCC (AR6). 

My CMIP6 storm track data of the historical period and future projections is available upon request. You can find details of available data through the link in the sidebar.

I was previously at the University of Reading and my PhD research focussed on the clustering of extratropical cyclones over the North Atlantic and western Europe, and the role of these events on windstorm losses across Europe. A central aim of this work was to investigate the dynamical drivers of these events and the relative roles of large-scale atmospheric features and secondary cyclogenesis.

If you wish to discuss any research ideas with me please email me - m.priestley@exeter.ac.uk.

My Google Scholar profile is available here.

You can follow me on Twitter @_mattpriestley.

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Publications

_{Copyright Notice: Any articles made available for download are for personal use only. Any other use requires prior permission of the author and the copyright holder.}

| 2024 | 2023 | 2022 | 2020 | 2018 | 2017 |

2024

• Jones T, Stephenson D, Priestley M. (2024) Correlation of wind and precipitation annual aggregate severity of European cyclones, DOI:10.5194/egusphere-egu24-6422. [PDF]
• Catto J, Priestley M, Little A. (2024) Changing risk from extratropical windstorms in Europe, DOI:10.5194/egusphere-egu24-17837. [PDF]

2023

• Priestley MDK, Stephenson DB, Scaife AA, Bannister D, Allen CJT, Wilkie D. (2023) Return levels of extreme European windstorms, their dependency on the North Atlantic Oscillation, and potential future risks, Natural Hazards and Earth System Sciences, volume 23, no. 12, pages 3845-3861, DOI:10.5194/nhess-23-3845-2023. [PDF]
• Hay S, Priestley MDK, Yu H, Catto JL, Screen JA. (2023) The Effect of Arctic Sea‐Ice Loss on Extratropical Cyclones, Geophysical Research Letters, volume 50, no. 17, DOI:10.1029/2023gl102840. [PDF]
• Flaounas E, Aragão L, Bernini L, Dafis S, Doiteau B, Flocas H, Gray SL, Karwat A, Kouroutzoglou J, Lionello P. (2023) A composite approach to produce reference datasets for extratropical cyclone tracks: application to Mediterranean cyclones, Weather and Climate Dynamics, volume 4, no. 3, pages 639-661, DOI:10.5194/wcd-4-639-2023.
• Little AS, Priestley MDK, Catto JL. (2023) Future increased risk from extratropical windstorms in northern Europe, Nat Commun, volume 14, no. 1, DOI:10.1038/s41467-023-40102-6. [PDF]
• Palmer T, McSweeney C, Booth B, Priestley M, Davini P, Brunner L, Borchert L, Menary M. (2023) Performance-based sub-selection of CMIP6 models for impact assessments in Europe, Earth System Dynamics, volume 14, pages 457-483, DOI:10.5194/esd-14-457-2023.
• Priestley MDK, Ackerley D, Catto JL, Hodges KI. (2023) Drivers of biases in the CMIP6 extratropical storm tracks. Part 2: Southern Hemisphere, Journal of Climate, volume 36, no. 5, pages 1468-1486, DOI:10.1175/jcli-d-20-0977.1. [PDF]
• Priestley MDK, Ackerley D, Catto JL, Hodges KI. (2023) Drivers of biases in the CMIP6 extratropical storm tracks. Part 1: Northern Hemisphere, Journal of Climate, volume 36, no. 5, pages 1451-1467, DOI:10.1175/jcli-d-20-0976.1. [PDF]

2022

• Priestley MDK, Catto JL. (2022) Future changes in the extratropical storm tracks and cyclone intensity, wind speed, and structure, Weather and Climate Dynamics, volume 3, no. 1, pages 337-360, DOI:10.5194/wcd-3-337-2022. [PDF]
• Leung LR, Boos WR, Catto JL, A. DeMott C, Martin GM, Neelin JD, O’Brien TA, Xie S, Feng Z, Klingaman NP. (2022) Exploratory Precipitation Metrics: Spatiotemporal Characteristics, Process-Oriented, and Phenomena-Based, Journal of Climate, volume 35, no. 12, pages 3659-3686, DOI:10.1175/jcli-d-21-0590.1. [PDF]
• Priestley MDK, Catto JL. (2022) Improved Representation of Extratropical Cyclone Structure in HighResMIP Models, Geophysical Research Letters, volume 49, no. 5, DOI:10.1029/2021gl096708. [PDF]

2020

• Priestley M, Ackerley D, Catto J, Hodges K, McDonald R, Lee R. (2020) An Overview of the Extratropical Storm Tracks in CMIP6 Historical Simulations, Journal of Climate, DOI:10.1175/JCLI-D-19-0928.1.
• Priestley MDK, Dacre HF, Shaffrey LC, Schemm S, Pinto JG. (2020) The role of secondary cyclones and cyclone families for the North Atlantic storm track and clustering over western Europe, Quarterly Journal of the Royal Meteorological Society, volume 146, no. 728, pages 1184-1205, DOI:10.1002/qj.3733. [PDF]

2018

• Priestley MDK, Dacre HF, Shaffrey LC, Hodges KI, Pinto JG. (2018) The role of serial European windstorm clustering for extreme seasonal losses as determined from multi-centennial simulations of high-resolution global climate model data, NATURAL HAZARDS AND EARTH SYSTEM SCIENCES, volume 18, no. 11, pages 2991-3006, DOI:10.5194/nhess-18-2991-2018. [PDF]

2017

• Priestley MDK, Pinto JG, Dacre HF, Shaffrey LC. (2017) The role of cyclone clustering during the stormy winter of 2013/2014, WEATHER, volume 72, no. 7, pages 187-192, DOI:10.1002/wea.3025. [PDF]
• Priestley MDK, Pinto JG, Dacre HF, Shaffrey LC. (2017) Rossby wave breaking, the upper level jet, and serial clustering of extratropical cyclones in western Europe, Geophysical Research Letters, volume 44, no. 1, pages 514-521, DOI:10.1002/2016GL071277.

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