The Atlantic's third storm has formed in record time, and it's a threat:
Last year's Atlantic hurricane season ranked among the top five most-active years on record. Its third named storm, Chantal, did not form until August 20.
By contrast, today is June 2, and the Atlantic's third named storm of the year just formed. [...]
This is the earliest ever in the Atlantic season (which, however imperfect, has records dating back to 1851) that the third named storm has formed in a given year. The previous earliest "C" storm was Colin, on June 5, 2016.
[...] The storm is trapped within a large oceanic circulation, known as a gyre, and high pressure over the northern Gulf of Mexico is also inhibiting its motion. As a result, Cristobal will probably wobble around the Bay of Campeche until at least Friday. This will cause torrential rainfall in Southern Mexico and parts of Central America this week.
[...] The bottom line is that a tropical system is likely to be in the Gulf of Mexico late this week, bound for the United States, over waters warm enough to sustain intensification. The time for preparations is definitely now.
(Score: 3, Informative) by takyon on Thursday June 04 2020, @02:33PM (3 children)
What would cause us to "lose coastal cities"? A category 3+ Hurricane Humberto (2007) style storm [wikipedia.org] hitting a part of the Gulf coast every week like a barrage?
The most affected buildings are the homes that keep getting rebuilt on the beach and other areas vulnerable to storm surge... because taxpayers keep footing the bill:
Taxpayers Get Soaked by Government's Flood Insurance [go.com]
After hurricanes, U.S. beach homes are rebuilt bigger [earthmagazine.org]
Costly hurricanes raise questions about the future of federal flood insurance [latimes.com]
Further inland, you get trees damaging property (preventable). Tornadoes can cause direct damage, but the ones hurricanes spawn are usually weak.
Winds could rip up buildings directly, but newer homes and buildings are more resistant. And if it's further from shore, it's probably not going to experience category 5 winds.
Hurricanes seem to be getting stronger and more numerous on average, but not to the extent needed to make the coast completely uninhabitable:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlantic_hurricane_season#Number_of_storms_of_each_strength_since_the_satellite_era [wikipedia.org]
We could have a season worse than 2005 and still survive if building codes improve, no levees unexpectedly break, and we stop incentivizing home building where wetlands [theconversation.com] should be.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday June 04 2020, @03:43PM (2 children)
Dude, I lived on the coast for a decent number of years. Cat 3 is only "well, shit, this is fairly annoying" unless you live right by the beach. Anything below Cat 3 is just more rain than normal. Cat 4 is when you start taking them seriously.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Thursday June 04 2020, @06:55PM (1 child)
Cat 3 is still pretty serious. And if you had them constantly, it would get old fast. But it isn't happening.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday June 04 2020, @11:42PM
Well if they were hitting your area several times a year, yeah. Short of that it's just no big whoop. Coastal states and cities know they're going to get hit and prepare way ahead of time (at least to the degree that they're not complete morons, which isn't quite a given for politicians).
My rights don't end where your fear begins.