Every year on Aug. 20, meteorologists at Colorado State University ring a bell to signal the start of peak hurricane season — a weeks-long stretch when hot ocean temperatures tend to generate frequent and destructive storms. But this year, the tradition gave way to an eerie, echoing quiet, with storm activity in the Atlantic at its lowest level in 30 years despite projections of a historic season.
That lull came to a decisive end this week, when Hurricane Helene slammed into Florida’s Big Bend with violent, deadly force. Fueled by exceptionally warm Caribbean waters, the Category 4 storm is one of the biggest to ever make landfall in the United States — and forecasters are already warning that additional cyclones are hot on its heels.
This lopsided hurricane season illustrates the challenges facing forecasters as climate change makes extreme weather less predictable and more intense. Even as some scientists say that Helene’s rapid growth and historic rainfall are signatures of a storm influenced by human-caused warming, they are still striving to understand whether this year’s unusual storm activity is a fluke or a sign of things to come.
“Is every season going to be like this? It’s hard to say,” said Phil Klotzbach, a meteorologist at Colorado State University. “We’ll just have to keep our eyes to the sky.”
With the world shifting into a La Niña weather pattern, which is typically associated with severe hurricanes, and “off the charts” water temperatures in the Atlantic, experts projected that this season would be among the worst in decades. But after experiencing Beryl in July, its earliest-ever Category 5 hurricane, the ocean basin saw the longest stretch in more than 50 years without a single late-summer cyclone.
“The season wasn’t the way we expected it to play out,” Klotzbach said. “And we’re still trying to figure out why.”
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