Hurricanes Are Twice As Likely to Get Rapidly Stronger Than Decades Ago

With warmer oceans serving as fuel, Atlantic hurricanes are now more than twice as likely as before to rapidly intensify from wimpy minor hurricanes to powerful and catastrophic, a study said Thursday. [time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”] Last month Hurricane Lee went from barely a hurricane at 80 mph (129 kph) to the most powerful Category 5 hurricane with 155 mph (249 kph) winds in 24 hours. In 2017, before it devastated Puerto Rico, Hurricane Maria went from a Category 1 storm with 90 mph (145 kph) to a top-of-the-chart whopper with 160 mph (257 kph) winds in just 15 hours. The study looked at 830 Atlantic tropical cyclones since 1971. It found that in the last 20 years, 8.1% of the time storms powered from a Category 1 minor storm to a major hurricane in just 24 hours. That happened only 3.2% of the time from 1971 to 1990, according to a study in the journal Scientific Reports. Category 1 hurricanes top out at 95 mph (153 kph) and a hurricane has to have at least 111 mph (178 kph) winds to become major. Those are the most extreme cases, but the fact that the rate of such turbocharging has more than doubled is disturbing, said study author Andra Garner, a climate scientist at Rowan University in New Jersey. Read more: Here’s Where All The Strongest Hurricanes Have Hit the U.S. in the Past 50 Years When storms rapidly intensify, especially as they near land, it makes it difficult for people in the storm’s path to decide on what they shoul...
Source: TIME: Science - Category: Science Authors: Tags: Uncategorized climate change healthscienceclimate wire Source Type: news