Record Warm Gulf Coast Fueling Idalia.
“Its path toward Florida’s Big Bend region includes waters where sea surface temperatures are hitting 90 degrees. The Gulf is warm under normal circumstances — water temperatures tend to hover in the 80s this time of year — but those extra few degrees are hurricane juice, researchers and meteorologists say.
“It just makes rapid intensification more likely,” said Brian McNoldy, a hurricane expert at the University of Miami.
Though much remains unknown about what causes hurricanes to strengthen swiftly, a few factors can help. Warm waters and low wind shear — a measurement of the way winds change speed or direction as they move over the ocean — are key.”
Climate change, global warming, whatever you want to call it is happening and the results are happening all around us. Storms are getting stronger and the damage greater every year. Ignoring the issue is no longer an option because it is starting to hit the pockets books of governments across the Globe let alone billions of people all over the planet. Insurance companies are now charging exorbitant rates to insure the areas most prone to climate change disasters and the list of vulnerable regions will only grow in the years and decades ahead.
