But the OP does raise the issue - Is this yet more evidence of Global warming... the extreme weather patterns that would increase in both intensity and frequency that scientists for a decade have warned about.
Hi zoli,
I understand your point, but I'm not sure the 'facts' are really valid. There have long been fairly disastrous hurricanes on this side of the planet. As yet the worst hurricane as far as strength and damage is the one in 1935 that hit the Florida Keys. Of course, when one is valuing damage, it must be considered that the Florida Keys were fairly uninhabited in that day and building costs were much less. However, when one uses the method that is pretty predictive of a hurricanes strength, the barometric pressure of the eye was 892 millibars of pressure. There has never been a hurricane to match that strength measurement.
In 1928 there was a killer cane that made landfall near West Palm Beach with 145 mph winds. That's stronger than Irma's 140 mph winds when it made landfall at the Keys. Hurricane Camille was another major killer storm that hit the Mississippi coast in 1969. So, I'm not exactly so sure that hurricane strength has really gotten any worse than it has pretty much always been for as long as we've been keeping hurricane records.
However, weather is always a difficult predictor. There are years when we have more canes than others and years when we have stronger canes than others and none of it really seems to be regular and orderly. Irma is certainly a very, very large storm system. It covers 400 miles or more across. So, we are having bad weather from the east coast of N.C. to the Gulf coast in Alabama. Certainly in breadth it is a large storm as compared to Andrew. But, if this is some change in the 'norm' of hurricane nature, we'll just have to wait and see. I know I left Florida in 2005 and they haven't had any major storms there until Irma. That's 12 years of good weather.
Hurricanes are regular weather events that generally begin by waves of hot air off the African coast, but where they end up and how strong they will be is generally a crap shoot. Once in a while they begin in the Gulf of Mexico, but still, strength and landfall is pretty much anyone's guess until their movements have been mapped.
I'm actually always amazed just how wise God is. He promised His people Israel the land of milk and honey and lo and behold, the land of Israel doesn't really seem to suffer from any kinds of natural threats. Anyway, time will tell.
God bless you,
In Christ, ted
