Kind: captions
Language: en
storm surge is the most deadly component
of a hurricane resulting in half of all
hurricane deaths although the focus is
often on wind speed in hurricanes the
deadliest aspect of a hurricane is water
the water gets pushed Inland and it can
cause water levels to rise and inundate
coastal cities in a very short amount of
time
the Southeastern coast of the U.S is
especially vulnerable to hurricanes and
Florida in particular for its geography
and proximity to warm tropical waters
hurricanes derive their energy from warm
ocean water at the Gulf of Mexico really
was a powder keg ready to blow hurricane
Ian hit the coast of Florida on
September 28 2022 overwhelming the
Southwest coast with rain storm surge
and wind speeds of up to 155 miles per
hour making it one of the most powerful
storms to ever make landfall in the U.S
the highest recorded storm surge in the
U.S was almost 28 feet in the bay St
Louis and past Christian areas of
Mississippi during Katrina in 2005 one
of the deadliest storms in U.S history
but what makes storm surge so deadly and
why are they so unpredictable
it's not just a big wave it's really a
massive inundation of a large wall of
water water is rushing in very fast and
the water levels are increasing like
super fast as well as hurricane winds
intensify they actually start
circulating water in the ocean but it's
not simply just the shoving of the water
onto the coast that wind blowing on the
surface of the ocean creates a
circulation in the ocean as well as the
storm gets closer to the land and the
Shelf you start to see the rise of that
water as it moves Inland but there are a
number of factors that contribute to the
intensity of a storm surge
what makes someone says really dangerous
is that it's very sensitive to a number
of factors so you've got storm intensity
the size of the storm the forward speed
the angle of the approach and the
continental shelf is important the
continental shelf or the underwater edge
of the continent plays a big part in
storm surge the shallower the Shelf the
greater the potential for storm surge
this is one of the things that makes the
Tampa region of Florida so vulnerable to
hurricanes
near Tampa Bay and off the Gulf side of
Florida you have a very gentle sloping
shelf and with this shelf it's going to
cause much more of a storm surge whereas
if you take Miami
your stone search may be half as less
because it drops off very quickly on the
east side of Florida but location
relative to a storm is an important
factor north of hurricane Ian in Tampa
Bay the storm actually Drew water away
from the coast on the Northern side of
the storm when the winds are blowing
essentially away from the coast then
they can have the same but reverse
effect they can essentially push the
water away from the coast and what you
get is what is known as negative or
reverse term search which is what we saw
in Tampa Bay another factor that experts
suspect is making storm surge worse
climate change because already those sea
levels are higher than what they used to
be so add on top of that the storm says
from the hurricane we have these higher
Waters you could have it even happening
at high tide which makes it even worse
and then the water pushing in so that's
a big impact from climate change on the
Hurricanes researchers also think that
hurricanes are intensifying faster and
moving slower going forward hurricanes
because of climate change will likely
increase in intensity
this is partly because oceans are
warming in response to climate change
and warm water is one of the main
ingredients for hurricanes they are
fueled by warm surface water warming may
also cause storms to move more slowly as
high and low pressure systems become
more balanced
you can't say as much about the
frequency of occurrence which is what
you often see people say oh we're going
to have more hurricanes because of
climate change that's actually a a
statement that needs a bit more care the
current scientific literature suggests
that we'll see stronger storms on
average not necessarily more frequent
ones