Trouble is brewing in the tropics. The National Hurricane Center has confirmed that the disturbance it has been monitoring over the central Caribbean Sea has strengthened to become the 13th named storm of the Atlantic hurricane season.
The newly formed Tropical Storm Melissa was located around 200 miles south of Port-au-Prince, Haiti, as of midday Tuesday, packing maximum sustained winds of 50 mph and moving to the west at around 14 mph. "Interests in Puerto Rico, Hispaniola, Jamaica, and Cuba should monitor the progress of this system, as there is a risk of heavy rain and flooding, strong winds, and rough surf later this week," the National Hurricane Center (NHC) advises.
The NHC has issued a Hurricane Watch for the southern coast and Tiburon Peninsula of Haiti. It has also issued a Tropical Storm Watch for Jamaica. Melissa is forecast to bring torrential rainfall to portions of Haiti and the Dominican Republic, which will raise the risk of flash flooding and landslides in the region.
The Air Force Hurricane Hunters will be investigating the system on Wednesday. Melissa could become the next hurricane of the season as it intensifies over the warm waters of the central Caribbean. If that happens, it would make Melissa the fifth hurricane of the Atlantic Hurricane season so far. The season will officially end on Nov. 30, but storms can develop after that date.
Two of the four hurricanes that developed this year reached Category 5 status. Hurricane Erin whipped up maximum winds of 160 mph in August, while Hurricane Humberto's strongest winds also reached 160 mph in late September.
Our warming world is boosting the power of tropical cyclones. Researchers at the nonprofit Climate Central found that our overheating planet increased the wind speeds of every Atlantic hurricane last year. "Human-caused global warming elevated ocean temperatures and boosted all eleven storms' intensities, increasing their highest sustained wind speeds by 3 to 14 miles per hour," according to peer-reviewed research. "This increase moved three of the hurricanes into a higher Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Scale category."
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Hurricane Helene killed at least 250 people, making it one of the deadliest hurricanes to strike the U.S. in modern times. It was the deadliest mainland U.S. hurricane since 2005's Hurricane Katrina. Scientists at World Weather Attribution (WWA) found our warming climate made the rainfall that contributed to Helene's catastrophic flooding about 10% heavier.
WWA's analysis of Helene concluded that the rainfall that contributed to the catastrophic flooding from the storm was about 10% heavier because of our warming climate.
"In today's climate, that has already been warmed by 1.3°C due primarily to the burning of fossil fuels, weather observations indicate that rainfall events as severe as those brought by Hurricane Helene now occur about once every 7 (3-25) years in the coastal region, and about once every 70 (20-3,000) years in the inland region," WWA researchers determined in their analysis titled: "Climate change key driver of catastrophic impacts of Hurricane Helene that devastated both coastal and inland communities."
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