Hurricanes|According to the researcher, climate change plays a role in the formation of hurricanes, but Milton approaching Florida is still quite a typical hurricane.
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Hurricane Milton is expected to hit the west coast of Florida on Wednesday.
Milton is predicted to be one of the worst hurricanes on record and cause widespread flooding.
According to Pauli Jokinen, a researcher at the Finnish Meteorological Institute, the United States is living in hurricane season, and there is nothing unusual about the formation of Milton itself.
Climate change affects the intensification of storms, but individual storms cannot be directly blamed for it.
Hurricane Milton is expected to make landfall on the west coast of Florida on Wednesday.
“I can say without any dramatization: if you choose to stay in one of these evacuation zones, you will die,” the mayor of the city of Tampa Jane Castor said Monday to CNN.
Florida is still trying to cope with the devastation caused by Hurricane Helene, which ended less than two weeks ago. Milton is expected to hit many of the areas recovering from Helene.
According to forecasts, Milton could be one of the worst hurricanes in state history. It went from a more conventional tropical storm to a Category 5 hurricane in just one day and is the fifth strongest storm on record.
According to experts’ estimates, Milton may push waves up to four meters high in front of it and cause flooding in large areas. Storm winds and rain also pose a danger. The clearing work of Helene’s destruction is still in progress and the scrap collected from the destruction is feared to turn into life-threatening ammunition with the winds.
Department of Meteorology Meteorologist Pauli Jokinen according to Milton, there is nothing atypical in itself. Hurricanes usually form around this time in the fall.
“We are living in the peak of the hurricane season, when hurricanes occur the most in the region. This in itself is not unusual,” says Jokinen.
According to him, Helene and Milton have benefited from the same conditions prevailing in the Gulf of Mexico. A similar phenomenon was also seen in 2005, when Hurricane Katrina hit the United States. Also then, several hurricanes hit the United States one after the other.
“If you think about the weather in Finland, we can also have several autumn or winter storms in a row”.
Particularly important for the formation of hurricanes is the amount of warm sea water, as well as the absence of so-called wind shear. If the wind speed is approximately equal at sea level and higher in the atmosphere, hurricanes are more likely to form. In a strong windstorm, the storm cannot take advantage of the seawater temperature
Wind winch There may be an increase in the Gulf of Mexico just before Milton reaches Florida.
“The strongest winds are not so strong then, but that means that Milton may also grow,” says Jokinen.
The wind still remains at hurricane speeds. The storm’s growth means that the violent storm winds only affect a wider area and set larger water masses in motion. This also means the expansion of storm runoff and flood areas.
Climate change plays a role in the formation of favorable conditions for storms. The sea water is now very warm also deep below the sea surface.
“Climate change is to a storm a bit like doping to an athlete. It makes the formation of such hurricanes more likely. However, you can’t say unequivocally that this was the cause of climate change or that it wasn’t,” says Jokinen.
Climate change hurricane Helene is also believed to have strengthened.
According to a study published by the international World Weather Attribution group, climate change strengthened storm Helene by about 10 percent.
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