Climate change makes storms more likely

Climate Change and the Power of Milton’s El Nino Hurricane in Appalachian And Mid-Atlantic Regions: The Effects of the Gulf of Mexico

Julie Arrighi, an author of the study and director of programs at the Red Cross Red Crescent Climate Centre, said that communities need to be prepared for storms in the future.

storms can take additional moisture when the ocean water is hotter. That drives heavier rainfall – but it also acts as a power source for the storm: when water turns from vapor to liquid, it releases energy.

The Atlantic Ocean, where hurricanes that hit the U.S. form, and the Gulf of Mexico just off Florida, have been hotter than average for more than 18 months, driven both by climate change and the recent El Nino weather pattern.

The number of storms that make landfall in a single year doesn’t indicate how destructive a season is. Neither does the category, which measures wind speed but not rainfall or storm surge.

Milton will be the fifth hurricane to make landfall in the U.S. this year. Like Helene, the storm has gained strength rapidly as it spins across the Gulf of Mexico, where water temperatures are abnormally high.

Those are the findings of a study released Wednesday by researchers with World Weather Attribution, an international network of scientists who conduct rapid studies to assess the impact of climate change on major weather events.

In central and southern Appalachia, where catastrophic flooding washed away roads, destroyed homes and businesses and left thousands of people still without power two weeks afterwards, climate change made such heavy rain up to 70% more likely. The true number of people who died from the storm will take a long time to be determined.

A key factor in Helene’s intensity was extraordinarily high water temperatures in the Gulf of Mexico. Sea surface temperatures reached about 85 degrees Fahrenheit as Helene was forming.

Wehner worked with a team on an analysis to figure out the impact of climate change on the storm. His team discovered that climate change could have helped the situation by boosting the amount of precipitation.

Ultimately, the only way to head off more storms like Helene is to limit global warming, says Bernadette Woods Placky, chief meteorologist for Climate Central, who worked on the WWA analysis.