Remember Hurricane Harvey, which poured record amounts of rain on a suburb of Houston because it moved slowly? It appears Hurricane Sally may do the same thing:
The 5 p.m. advisory of the National Hurricane Center placed a real emphasis on Sally’s slow speed and the amount of water it is unloading on coastal areas from Mississippi to the Florida Panhandle.
Sally continues to crawl northward at a mere 2 mph as it dumps excessive rainfall. Flash flood warnings have been expanded to cover the coastline of most of the Florida Panhandle and across the border into Gulf Shores, Ala. Pensacola has already picked up nearly 4 inches of rain.
The center’s 5 p.m. advisory calls for probable “historic life-threatening flooding” along portions of the northern Gulf Coast.
Whether this is connected to anthropogenic climate change or not is hard to say, but in the face of the various extreme weather events we continue to experience, it seems to me to be highly suggestive. Hurricanes are a big slap upside the head. Will we have to abandon our coasts if hurricanes were to continue to strengthen and became more numerous. I hope not.
Let’s hope we learn from them.
