This is why meteorologists expect an extraordinary fall to follow the unprecedented summer, likely filled with active hurricanes and warmer weather through the winter. Summer and fall are typically prime times for extremes, but this year we also have El Niño, the natural cycle when Pacific waters reach higher-than-average temperatures, which is just starting to ramp up. Disaster season - or at least, what we’ve historically thought of as disaster season - is hardly over yet. A heat wave, drought, and wildfire can conceivably all hit the same area, for example, and even raise the risks of flooding if a storm finally comes, because the ground is too parched to absorb the influx of water.Īnd there may be worse to come. In some cases, one event might accelerate another. This summer has seen a rising number of “compound events,” disasters occurring simultaneously or hitting one after another, according to climate scientist Katharine Hayhoe. These are the same average temperature increases that scientists have warned will mean irreversible, widespread crises around the planet. The group reported that both July and August reached global average temperatures around 1.5 degrees Celsius warmer than preindustrial times. The European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service recently determined that it’s been the hottest summer since records began, beating the last record set in 2019 by a significant margin. “Seemingly no part of the country has been left unscathed,” Ko Barrett, NOAA’s climate adviser, told Vox. And this doesn’t even include the costs from Tropical Storm Hilary in California or from the ongoing drought in the South and Midwest, because those costs have yet to be fully calculated. The US has set a new record for the number of billion-dollar disasters in a year - 23 so far - in its history, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). It will add to what’s already been an exceptional year of extreme weather. It’s a prime example of rapid intensification made worse by warming ocean temperatures. The wave of unusual disasters this summer now includes Hurricane Lee, a storm that swelled from Category 1 to Category 5 in just 24 hours as it barreled toward Canada.
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