First Harvey, Then Irma and Jose. Why? It’s the Season.
“This is when 95 percent of hurricanes and major hurricanes form.”
As to whether climate change has somehow made this year worse, the links between climate change
and hurricane activity are complex and there are still many uncertainties.
Hurricane experts say that the formation of several storms in rapid succession is not uncommon, especially in August, September
and October, the most active months of the six-month hurricane season.
“This is the peak,” said Gerry Bell, the lead seasonal hurricane forecaster with the Climate
Prediction Center, a part of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
“We’re seeing the activity we predicted.”
Since the season began on June 1 there have been 12 named storms, four of which strengthened
into hurricanes, with maximum sustained winds above 73 miles per hour.
And early Wednesday, a coalescing weather system in the southwestern Gulf of Mexico became tropical storm Katia — the fourth named storm in two weeks.
Part of the problem, scientists say, is that there are just not
that many storms: A dozen or so each year over the decades that good records have been kept do not form a huge data set to work with.
And as sea level rises, the impact of storm surges from hurricanes would be expected to worsen, because the surges are on top of a higher baseline.