Data Show U.S. Hit With Worst Storms on Record
Rick Jervis
October 22, 2008
By Rick Jervis
USA Today
More frequent and powerful hurricanes from the Atlantic Ocean and Gulf of Mexico since the mid-1990s have created one of the most dangerous and costliest storm eras in recorded history, a USA TODAY analysis of weather data shows.
Photo: Wayne Neill and Brenda Roby hug as Donna Hanson looks at her lost Galveston, Texas, home last month. (By David J. Phillip, AP)
Since 1995, there have been 207 named storms in the Atlantic basin, which includes the Gulf of Mexico — a 68% increase from the previous 13 years, according to statistics from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). Of those storms, 111 were hurricanes, a 75% increase over the previous period.
This year, with just over one month left in the Atlantic hurricane season, there have been 15 named storms, seven of which have been hurricanes.
The latest to make U.S. landfall were Hurricanes Gustav and Ike, which battered the Louisiana and Texas coasts last month, destroyed billions of dollars' worth of homes and businesses, and caused deluges as far inland as Missouri and Chicago.
"We've had quite an intense increase in hurricane activity," said Kevin Trenberth, of the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo. "We may be in this cycle for another 20 years."
The increased populations in coastal communities and the loss of wetlands, which serve as a natural buffer against hurricanes, mean the USA is confronting one of the more dangerous and expensive hurricane periods ever, Trenberth said.
2005 SHATTERS RECORD
Coastal communities enjoyed a relatively calm period for hurricanes from the 1970s to the mid-1990s. Then, in 1995, the Atlantic produced 19 named storms, 11 of them hurricanes, creating the busiest season since 1933, according to NOAA statistics.
The record was shattered in 2005, when 28 named storms formed. More than half were hurricanes. One of them was Hurricane Katrina, which slammed into the Gulf Coast just east of New Orleans and created the costliest disaster in U.S. history.
"It's been busy, without a doubt," Shawn O'Neil, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Slidell, La. "A lot of conversation here has been about the change in philosophy. People are evacuating more than ever before. You can't help but notice it."
The increased activity has also led to increased federal relief. The Federal Emergency Management Agency has spent more than $63 billion since 1988 in emergency recovery and public assistance funds following hurricanes and tropical storms. So far this year, the agency has spent $80 million on emergency storm relief, according to FEMA.
Some meteorologists say the increased storm activity is caused by a naturally occurring cycle of activity that hatches more storms in the Atlantic.
"These are likely due to a natural climate fluctuation in the Atlantic," said Chris Landsea, a scientist with the National Hurricane Center in Miami.
Kerry Emanuel, a scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who has studied climate effect on hurricanes, says global warming and human-caused climate change is contributing. But Landsea has said evidence that global warming is affecting hurricanes "is pretty darn tiny."
MORE POWERFUL, PERSISTENT
The intensity and reach of recent storms also pose a new challenge.
"Storms are not just making landfall and going away the way they did in the past," Trenberth said. "Somehow these storms are able to live longer today."
In August, meteorologists across the country watched in amazement as Tropical Storm Fay crisscrossed Florida a record-breaking four times before dispersing, Trenberth said.
Gustav traveled all the way to Baton Rouge, more than 100 miles from the coast, with hurricane-force winds, surprising thousands of evacuees who had fled there from southern Louisiana. Remnants of Gustav and Ike dumped rain more than 1,000 miles inland, Trenberth said.
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