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Storms have become 25% more intense over the past 50 years. The trend continues.
Global warming has moved the storm belt, so that some previously-immune areas are now experiencing powerful storms.
“It feels like driving an old wooden rollercoaster through a car wash,” says Lieutenant Commander Kevin Doremus from the NOAA weather service, describing his experience in 2019 gathering data by flying into Hurricane Dorian, the most severe hurricane ever recorded in the Bahamas.
Such roller-coaster storms are rattling ever more with each passing year. Scientists from the University of Okinawa in Japan have studied storm data from the past 50 years, and have concluded that not only have storms become more severe, they are also holding their strength for an ever longer time after making landfall.
It’s a trend that will only continue as the world warms up. Some scientists predict superstorms with wind speeds above 300km/h, causing immense destruction.
The seeds of a storm
Storms have different names depending on where
