After +/- 5,000 Deaths, $282 Billion In Damages, Atl. Hurricane Season Starts in Ever-Warming World

[hatrack]

No holds barred, 2017 featured the most devastating hurricane season on record for the North Atlantic basin. More than 282 billion dollars in damages were inflicted. The season produced the strongest storm ever to form in the Atlantic — Irma. And another very strong storm — Maria — resulted in the loss of an estimated 5,000 lives in the U.S. territory of Puerto Rico.

With human-caused climate change making the strongest storms more and more powerful, we ask the pertinent question — how bad will the 2018 hurricane season be?

(Analysis of climatological factors leading up to the 2018 hurricane season.)

Already, we have seen sub-tropical storm Alberto form in the Caribbean and track northward into the U.S. Gulf Coast prior to official hurricane season start. This storm brought with it heavy rains to the Eastern U.S. A region already reeling from historic flooding. One locked beneath a seemingly never-ending Matrix-esque pall of dark clouds. Alberto is one of many recent early season storms. And it may be a harbinger of more intense storms to follow.

Much warmer than normal sea surfaces are quite pervasive across the Gulf of Mexico and off the U.S. East Coast. In these regions temperatures range between 1 C and up to 7 C above average in the most extreme instances. These near-shore much warmer than normal waters will tend to fuel any storm that does approach the U.S. In addition, a fading La Nina could enable storm formation by reducing wind shear over the Atlantic. Lastly, combined high atmospheric water vapor levels and instability over the Eastern U.S. and parts of the North Atlantic may aid in storm formation and help to fuel the storms that do gather.

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(Odd Alberto tracking toward Lake Michigan yesterday. Alberto, as with many recent storms, maintained strength over land while dumping heavy rainfall. While not comparable to Harvey’s all-time record inundation, Alberto is contributing to very severe rainfall over the Eastern U.S. during late spring of 2018. Image source: University of Miami and Brian McNoldy.)

EDIT

https://robertscribbler.com/2018/05/31/stronger-hurricanes-in-a-record-warm-world-looking-ahead-to-the-atlantic-hurricane-season-2018/

[babylonsister]

1. I live in FL. I'm scared to death. nt

[lordsummerisle]

2. Good luck this season

I'm in coastal South Carolina and it's widely expected here that a major hurricane is overdue to hit (last one was Hugo in 1989).

[babylonsister]

3. Thanks. Luck to you also. I think we're

all going to get hit to different degrees. I can't imagine no hurricanes heading this way.