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But even though carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions continue to rise, hurricane activity in the U.S. remains at an historic low, according to data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) Hurricane Research Division, which maintains a list of all major hurricanes that have made landfall since 1851. “The changes we’re seeing in our climate means that, unfortunately, storms like Sandy could end up being more common and more devastating,” Obama said at the headquarters of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) in Washington. “And that’s why we’re also going to be doing more to deal with the dangers of carbon pollution that help to cause this climate change and global warming,” the president added.
But after peaking during the 1950s, the number of hurricanes battering the U.S. mainland has dropped precipitously. It’s been nine years since Wilma, the last major hurricane to make landfall in the U.S., struck South Florida, killing 25 people. And according to NOAA, “the outlook calls for a 50 percent chance of a below-normal season, a 40 percent chance of a near-normal season, and only a 10 percent chance of an above-normal season.” Colorado State University climatologists Philip Klotzbach and William Gray also predicted “a below-average Atlantic hurricane season," which began June 1.
They calculated that there is only a 38 percent chance that at least one major hurricane (Category 3-4-5) will strike the U.S. coast this year, compared to the 52 percent average probability throughout the 20th century. “Conditions in the tropical Atlantic are quite unfavorable at the present time…The Main Development Region (10-20°N, 60-20°W) (MDR) is approximately 0.5°C cooler than normal. SSTs [Sea Surface Temperatures] in the MDR are the coldest that they have been during July since 2002 (another relatively quiet Atlantic hurricane season),” they noted.
The 1900 hurricane in Galveston, Tex. destroyed 3,600 buildings and killed more than 8,000 people. It remains the deadliest natural disaster in U.S. history.
Since 1851, three catastrophic Category 5 hurricanes – defined as having a maximum sustained wind speed of over 157 miles per hour – have made landfall in the U.S.: the 1935 Labor Day hurricane in the Florida Keys, Camille in 1969, and Andrew in 1992. However, the Category 4 hurricane that hit Galveston, Texas in 1900 was by far the deadliest, with at least 8,000 – and possibly as many as 12,000 people– killed when a 15-foot storm surge inundated the low-lying city. It remains the worst weather-related disaster in U.S. history.
Despite Rising CO2 Levels Hurricane Activity Remains At Historic Low CNS News
Officials declared a state of emergency in dozens of municipalities in Colima, Nayarit and Jalisco states that contain the bustling port of Manzanillo and the posh resort of Puerto Vallarta. The governor of Colima ordered schools closed on Friday, when the storm was forecast to make landfall as a still-deadly Category 4 storm. Rain pounded Manzanillo late Thursday while people took last-minute measures ahead of Patricia, which quickly grew from a tropical storm into a Category 5 hurricane, leaving authorities scrambling to make people safe. At a Wal-Mart in Manzanillo, shoppers filled carts with non-perishables as a steady rain fell outside.
People preparing for the arrival of hurricane Patricia board up the windows of a seaside business in the Pacific resort city of Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, Thursday, Oct. 22, 2015. Hurricane Patricia grew into a monster, Category 5 storm and bore down on Mexico’s central Pacific Coast, on or near Puerto Vallarta, on Thursday night for what forecasters said could be a devastating blow, as officials declared a state of emergency and handed out sandbags in preparation for flooding.
Veronica Cabrera, shopping with her young son, said Manzanillo tends to flood with many small streams overflowing their banks. She said she had taped her windows at home to prevent them from shattering. Alejandra Rodriguez, shopping with her brother and mother, was buying 10 liters of milk, a large jug of water and items like tuna and canned ham that do not require refrigeration or cooking. The family already blocked the bottoms of the doors at their home to keep water from entering. Manzanillo's "main street really floods and cuts access to a lot of other streets. It ends up like an island," Rodriguez said.
In Puerto Vallarta, restaurants and stores taped or boarded-up windows, and residents raced to stores for last-minute purchases ahead of the storm. The U.S. National Hurricane Center in Miami warned that preparations should be rushed to completion, saying the storm could cause coastal flooding, destructive waves and flash floods. "This is an extremely dangerous, potentially catastrophic hurricane," center meteorologist Dennis Feltgen said. Feltgen said Patricia also poses problems for Texas. Forecast models indicate that after the storm breaks up over land, remnants of its tropical moisture will likely combine with and contribute to heavy rainfall that is already soaking Texas independently of the hurricane, he said. "It's only going to make a bad situation worse," he said.
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Many residents took shelter in schools and caves as the storm, named Chapala, brought hurricane-force winds, heavy rain and powerful waves to the island. Photos and videos posted online showed water flowing through the streets of the provincial capital, Hadibu. It is believed to be the most powerful storm that Yemen has seen in decades. The UN's World Meteorological Organisation described the cyclone as "extremely severe", and said that sea conditions around the centre of the storm were "phenomenal".
A Nasa astronaut took a photo of Cyclone Chapala moving through the Arabian Sea on Saturday
At 12:00 GMT on Monday, the US Navy's Joint Typhoon Warning Centre (JTWC) reported that Chapala was generating gusts of up to 240km/h (150mph), equivalent to a category 4 hurricane. The storm is forecast to make landfall just west of the city of Mukalla, on the south coast of the Yemeni mainland, between 00:00 GMT and 12:00 GMT on Tuesday, when gusts of up to 140 km/h (85mph) are expected. The JTWC said Chapala would begin to weaken as dry air emanating from the Arabian Peninsula eroded the storm system, and that it would rapidly decay after landfall mainly due to the interaction with the rugged and dry Yemeni terrain.
Dozens of homes and vehicles on Socotra were damaged by water or swept away
The cyclone could nevertheless deluge parts of the country with up to 500mm (20in) of rain in two days - 10 times the annual average. Socotra is situated 368km (230 miles) south of the coast of Yemen in the Arabian Sea, to the east of Somalia. It is home to about 50,000 people, who speak their own language, and hundreds of exotic plant species found nowhere else on earth, including dragon's blood trees. The mayor of Hadibu, Salem Zaher, told the AFP news agency that Chapala had damaged more than 80 houses and left hundreds of people needing hospital treatment.
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"As far as WMO is aware, it is unprecedented to have back-to-back cyclones in this part of the Arabian Gulf in the space of a week," the Geneva-based U.N. weather agency said in a statement. The new storm, named Megh, is expected to intensify into a severe cyclonic storm during the next 24 hours with sustained winds of up to 100 kmh (62 mph). It will weaken from Sunday, becoming a mere low pressure area by the time it hits the Yemen coast around Tuesday bringing more rain.
In its path lies the remote island of Socotra, 380 km (238 miles) off Yemen in the Arabian Sea, where it may wreak havoc on the 50,000 residents and hundreds of the island's unique plant species, the second time in the space of a week they will have suffered. More than a third of Socotra's population, 18,000 people, were displaced by Cyclone Chapala earlier this week, the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said in a statement. The freak back-to-back storms are caused by the "Indian Ocean dipole", a weather phenomenon similar to a regional El Nino, caused when surface sea temperatures are higher than normal.
Alasdair Hainsworth, head of Disaster Risk Reduction at the WMO, said the dipole should be at its maximum at the start of November, but it was still possible that there could be yet another cyclone after Megh. "It's hard to say that that is necessarily going to occur, but certainly the conditions are there," he told Reuters. "You'd think that it has just about run out of puff by now because the sun is moving rapidly south, but it does appear that the environment at the present time is highly conducive to these circulations."
Sea surface temperatures in the particular area of the Indian Ocean where the cyclones were occurring were between 1 and 2 degrees above average, he said. "It's clearly enough to kick things off in a big way. So much of the atmosphere is on a knife edge."
Second freak storm heads for Yemen, WMO says
