Hurricane Laura, August 27, 2020
An article in the journal Nature claims hurricanes are keeping their staying power longer once they make landfall, thus more inland destruction. State Climatologist Barry Keim says we know once storms make landfall, they are cut off from their energy source of warm water.
“What they’re arguing in this paper is that climate change and warmer sea surface temperatures are able to feed more moisture into the hurricanes, even after they make landfall, which is then enabling these storms to maintain their intensity for much longer,” said Keim.
Keim said the study showed the average length of time it took a storm to weaken to two-thirds of its landfall strength in the 1960s was about 17-hours.
“Today now the storms take an average of 33-hours to weaken to that same extent,” said Keim.
Keim said a good example of longer staying power is Hurricane Laura, it made landfall as a Category 4 and was still at hurricane strength when it reached Shreveport 250-miles inland.
Keim said hurricanes are no longer seen as a coastal issue as warmer sea temperatures from climate change serve as an energy reservoir for storms.
“And even after the storms make landfall they’re still able to feed off that and evect some of that moisture into the storms so that’s basically still feeding some energy into the storm long after it makes landfall,” said Keim.
The study compared 71 Atlantic hurricanes with landfalls as far back from 1967.
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