From Scientific American in January 2020 – 2019 brought us;
i. ‘In India – Despite an unusually late start, the June – September monsoon period featured rains 10% above average, making it the most bountiful monsoon of the past 25 years, said the India Meteorological Department.’
ii. ‘In the Bahamas – After hitting St. Thomas in the U.S. Virgin Islands as a category 1 hurricane on August 28 and causing $150 million in damage to the Caribbean islands, Hurricane Dorian rapidly intensified into a category 5 mega-hurricane that powered ashore on Great Abaco Island in The Bahamas on September 1, 2019 with sustained winds of 185 mph. This tied Dorian with the 1935 Florida Keys Labor Day Hurricane as the most powerful landfalling Atlantic hurricane (by wind speed) on record’’.’
iii. ‘In Mozambique – In scenes reminiscent of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans in 2005, Mozambique’s Tropical Cyclone Idai on March 14 left thousands of people marooned on rooftops in an “inland ocean” up to 30 miles wide that the great cyclone’s heavy rains and storm surge created.’
iv. ‘In Japan – Japan suffered the second most expensive typhoon strike in its history in 2019 when Typhoon Hagibis roared ashore in the Nagano prefecture on October 12, 2019 as a category 2 storm with 100 mph winds.’
v. ‘In USA – The contiguous U.S. had its wettest January through November period on record in 2019, and the period July 2018 – June 2019 was the wettest 12-month period in continental U.S. history. Almost every state had above-average precipitation in 2019.’
vi. ‘In the Western Pacific – typhoon HALONG recorded maximum sustained winds to near 190mph, surpassing hurricane Dorian.
What is a hurricane?
A hurricane is the name given to large rotating storms that form in the Atlantic or eastern Pacific oceans. Similar storms in the Indian Ocean and South Pacific are known as cyclones, and those formed in the western Pacific are called typhoons.
Are they getting worse?
Two common measures used to judge whether hurricanes are becoming worse are the number of storms per year and the strength of each storm. Based on the total number of named storms, there has been an increase since the start of the 20th century.
To assess more accurately how bad a storm is, meteorologists use the Accumulated Cyclone Energy Index– or ACE – to account for the strength, frequency and duration of storms per year. The Atlantic Ocean is in the midst of its worst stretch on record and new data suggests that hurricanes could become stronger, slower and wetter in the future.
Why is the number of named storms growing?
The increase in named storms can be attributed to human-induced climate change. As a result, the world’s oceans continue to warm at a fast rate, which means hurricanes are more likely. Hurricanes draw their energy from deep below the ocean’s surface – up to depths of 2,000m. The temperature at these depths is measured by Ocean Heat Content, a metric that has soared since 1970, driven largely by four of the world’s major oceans. 2019, was the hottest on record.
Warmer waters have made the speed at which hurricanes intensify in strength faster in recent years. Meteorologists use the term “rapid intensification” – or RI – to describe a storm that increases its maximum sustained winds by at least 35mph within a 24-hour period. In 2017, there were 40 separate cases of RI – the most in at least 35 years. What’s particularly worrying is when a storm transforms from a category 1 hurricane to a Category 5 monster in less than 24 hours. In the case of Hurricane Maria, this left people on the island of Dominica with insufficient time to prepare.[1]
What does this mean?
Over 2,000 years ago we were warned of storms to come;
Luke 21: 25 – 26– On the earth, nations will be in anguish and perplexity at the roaring and tossing of the sea. People will faint from terror, apprehensive of what is coming on the world…
What else does the Bible tell us?– The Future
What does that mean for you?– Good News
[1]The Guardian – 10thOctober 2018