Humberto

It looks like all the known rules about hurricanes are being pushed to the limit these days. Hurricane season is starting earlier and lasting longer. Hurricanes are getting stronger and more intense. There’s talk about expanding the Saffir-Simpson hurricane scale that currently tops out at category 5 and extending it to include a category 6. But as quickly as the intensity of the storms is growing category 7 can’t be too far behind. And it’s only a matter of time before hurricane season is starting sometime in April and ending in late January.

For years the weather service has been able to predict pending hurricanes days in advance giving the public more time to prepare for the impact and/or leave town with time to spare. But something altogether different happened on Wednesday, September 12th. A tropical depression formed in the Gulf of Mexico just off the coast of Texas that morning. Eighteen hours later there was a fully formed hurricane in the gulf. The forecasters were able to predict its path with only hours of warning. Humberto was the quickest forming hurricane on record.

People have always had this arrogance to believe that they could tame weather. Scientist dream of one day having a machine, techniques, or procedures that could actually influence weather to the dominating will of the people. Humberto is more proof that nature isn’t just sitting around for humans to catch up. For every ying that humans do nature has an infinite number of yangs to counter. Now that we’ve thrown down the gauntlet in this match of wits Mother Nature is only too happy to oblige us.

A hurricane that forms in as little as a day and right off the coast is a dangerous phenomenon. When hurricanes can develop with the quickness of a tornado we are in some serious trouble. And Humberto was only a category F2 at best. What happens when we an F5 or the yet to be determined F6 forming so close to shore in a matter of hours. There will be very little we can do to prepare other than maybe call all our relatives outside the area of impact and tell them how much we love them.

And this is only one of the transformations of hurricanes that is manifesting. Add the extension of the hurricane season, the fact that hurricanes are happening more often, hurricanes are getting stronger, hurricanes are forming quicker, what else can happen? What if hurricanes are able to maintain their integrity further into land? What if the hurricanes absorb more moisture from the sea and are able to carry that further over land and inundate more areas with flooding conditions? The options are nearly endless. And nature is holding all the cards.

But we’re not through yet. We can build houses that are even more wind resistant. We can put our buildings on taller stronger stilts to keep them from being subject to flooding. We can determine the mechanics of these quicker forming storms. Instead of only having mere hours to prepare for these new storms we can have more hours to prepare. And as we adapt the weather will only get more chaotic. Humberto is just the first of many changes on the horizon.