Even higher amounts are likely if the hurricane hits mountainous locations or moves slowly, like what happened with Hurricane Harvey in Texas. This rain can produce extreme flash flooding and in mountainous areas, deadly mudslides. In the U. Now Hourly 10 Day. Live Radar. Weather Details. Featured Videos. Air Quality. Taste of Winter Overspreads U. A group of people sift through the rubble of a house that was directly in the path of a tornado spawned by Hurricane Andrew. After the U.
Feminists like Roxcy Bolton campaigned to stop associating women with natural disasters, and in the U. In , Hurricane Andrew became the first of these male-named hurricanes to reach Category 5 in the U. It made landfall in southern Florida on August 24, , and reached sustained wind speeds of miles per hour.
The storm killed 61 people , and its destruction or damage to buildings displaced another , Florida resident Lisa Patrick is overcome with emotion as she visits the remains of her home to see if she can salvage anything after it was destroyed by Hurricane Michael as it passed through the area in October in Mexico Beach, Florida. Hurricane Michael had maximum sustained wind speeds of miles per hour when it made landfall in Florida Panhandle in October It killed 16 people and was one of eight hurricanes in the North Atlantic that year—including Hurricane Florence, which killed 54 people.
Scientists warn that climate change may increase the severity of storms, meaning that storms in the North Atlantic will become more likely to turn into hurricanes as climate change continues.
But if you see something that doesn't look right, click here to contact us! In the continental U. News that a category 6 storm was heading towards them would probably not motivate people to take action to protect lives and property any more than if a category 5 storm was coming.
Some hurricane experts believe that the Saffir-Simpson scale should be scrapped entirely. The original scale, introduced in , included both wind speeds and typical storm surge for each category. For this reason, NHC removed the storm surge values in , resulting in a wind-only scale.
A big problem remains: most of the loss of life in hurricanes is from water—storm surge and freshwater flooding—not from wind. We need to come up with a system that alerts people in a concise way of the magnitude of the threat to life and property due to winds, storm surge, and inland flooding, and not just the magnitude of the winds. With this in mind, NHC made storm surge watches and warnings operational during the hurricane season.
However, these storm surge advisories do not give quantitative measures of storm surge or its potential damage. A better solution might be the introduction of a storm surge scale. But this still leaves us without a good way to communicate the inland flooding threat from a slow-moving hurricane that dumps catastrophic amounts of rainfall. Jim Kossin. As a result of their slower forward motion, tropical cyclones are now more likely to drop heavier rains, increasing their flood risk.
Heavy rains are also increasing due to the extra amount of moisture that evaporates into the air due to global warming. So, perhaps a new scale for inland flood risk is needed. Local National Weather Service offices already provide detailed, color-coded maps that show the relative threat levels from four different hurricane hazards: winds, storm surge, flooding rains, and tornadoes.
Related Stories. Sep 13, Jun 07, Hurricanes: Category 6 listing possible May 22, Jul 18, Oct 08, Recommended for you. In Science magazine, scholars call for more comprehensive research into solar geoengineering 7 hours ago. Global temperatures over last 24, years show today's warming 'unprecedented' Nov 10, Nov 10, Load comments 0. Let us know if there is a problem with our content. Your message to the editors. Your email only if you want to be contacted back.
Send Feedback. Thank you for taking time to provide your feedback to the editors. E-mail the story What is a Category 5 storm?
0コメント