By Elizabeth Kolbert 4 September 2017 (The New Yorker) – On 29 August 2005, at six-ten in the morning, Hurricane Katrina made landfall on the border of Mississippi and Louisiana, just east of New Orleans. Katrina had spent days wobbling over the Gulf of Mexico, and by the time it reached the coast it was […]
Dr. Jeff Masters 7 September 2017 (Weather Underground) – Hurricane Irma plowed through the Turks and Caicos Islands (population 31,000) on Thursday evening, as it headed west-northwest at 16 mph towards The Bahamas and Florida. Irma maintained Category 5 intensity with 175 mph winds as its eye crossed the small privately-owned Big Ambergris Cay, but […]
By Molly Rubin 7 September 2017 (Quartz) – For the first time in modern history, three hurricanes in the Atlantic are lined up in the most dangerous of ways, according to Eric Blake, a hurricane specialist at the National Hurricane Center.The National Hurricane Center (NHC) has issued advisories on Hurricane Irma (currently located north of […]
By Eric Holthaus 7 September 2017(Grist) – The last Category 5 hurricane to make landfall in the United States was Andrew, which lashed South Florida with wind gusts of up to 177 miles per hour in 1992. It caused immense devastation and forever changed Florida’s approach to hurricanes.Twenty-five years later, we have Hurricane Irma — […]
By Dana Nuccitelli 5 September 2017 (The Guardian) – Human-caused climate change amplified the damages and suffering associated with Hurricane Harvey in several different ways. First, sea level rise caused by global warming increased the storm surge and therefore the coastal inundation and flooding from the storm. Second, the warmer atmosphere holds more water vapor, […]
By Christopher Brennan 6 September 2017 (New York Daily News) – The island of Barbuda is “literally under water” and “barely habitable” after nearly all of its buildings were destroyed by Hurricane Irma.Gaston Browne, prime minister of Antigua and Barbuda, told a local ABS broadcaster that one baby had died and about 60% of the […]
By Eric Mack 5 September 2017 (Forbes) – While flood waters still stand in Houston, another dangerous storm – Hurricane Irma – is on a track toward the Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico and perhaps Florida, according to multiple models. Thanks in part to the same warm ocean waters that helped make Hurricane Harvey so destructive, […]
By Graham Lanktree 6 September 2017 (Newsweek) – Hurricane Irma made landfall on the small island of Barbuda as a Category 5 hurricane Wednesday as it heads toward the U.S. Virgin Islands and Florida.The size of the storm left hurricane and weather scientists speechless. “I am at a complete and utter loss for words looking […]
By John Vidal 2 September 2017 (The Guardian) – First came the dire warnings of Hurricane Harvey, then the terrible scenes as the skies opened, whole neighbourhoods drowned and motorways became rivers. Now, as the waters subside and the full extent of the damage is assessed, come the voices of distraught people who have lost […]
By the Times Editorial Board 31 August 2017 (The New York Times) – Houston isn’t the only major city reeling from record rainfall and devastating floods. In Mumbai, India, where summer monsoons are annual events, as much rain fell in 12 hours on Tuesday as normally does over 11 days in a typical monsoon, paralyzing […]
