Eco Watch - Hurricanes—the most powerful storms on Earth—are becoming more widespread and destructive as a warming planet increases their intensity. Hurricanes Helene and Milton are following the trend of these storms becoming supercharged and more likely to form, according to a pair of studies from the World Weather Attribution.
The researchers found that Hurricane Helene’s wind speed on the coast of Florida was about 11 percent stronger due to climate change, and its total rainfall increased by 10 percent. The high water temperatures that fueled Helene were found to be between 200 and 500 times more likely, and hurricanes the size of Helene are now 2.5 times more likely each year due to climate change, according to the report.
As for Hurricane Milton, the researchers found storms of its intensity are now 40 percent more common, hurricanes with heavy one-day events similar to Milton are 20-30 percent more intense and twice as likely, and the maximum wind speeds of similar storms are about 10 percent stronger due to climate change.
This increase in wind speed, as the analysis points out, means that without human influence, Milton would have been a category 2 storm rather than category 3 when it made landfall, if it had formed at all.
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