Typhoon Lee has downgraded its strength to Category 3 but is still considered dangerous, the AP quoted experts as saying. It maintained this strength on September 9 also.
With the arrival of this storm the old rules of meteorology were broken. Experts have warned that Hurricane Lee could bring more severe storms.
“Storms are getting stronger at higher elevations,” said Marshall Shepherd, director of the atmospheric sciences program at the University of Georgia and former president of the American Meteorological Association. “Increasingly, this will affect places like Washington, D.C., New York and Boston.”
Hurricane Lee (right) in the Atlantic Ocean on September 8. Photo: AP
On the evening of September 9, Hurricane Lee broke the standard for what meteorologists call rapid intensification (meaning the storm’s sustained winds increased by 56 km/h in 24 hours).
According to Director Shepherd, Hurricane Lee’s wind gust reached 129 km/h, double the standard 56 km/h.
Kerry Emanuel, a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, said extremely warm ocean temperatures and low atmospheric shear helped Hurricane Lee rapidly strengthen.
Additionally, it is quite rare for a hurricane to reach Category 5 (sustaining winds of at least 253 km/h) like Lee in the Atlantic. Brian McNoldy, a hurricane scientist and researcher at the University of Miami, said only 4.5 percent of named hurricanes in the Atlantic over the past decade have reached Category 5.
More intense storms are also endangering inland communities, as monster storms can grow to such an extent that they remain dangerous hurricanes even inland.
“Because these hurricanes are strong and about to make landfall, in some cases they move so fast that they are still landfall hurricanes,” Shepherd said.
Hurricane Idalia is the latest example of this. It made landfall in the Florida panhandle last month and became a hurricane as it headed toward southern Georgia and struck the city of Valdosta, more than 116 kilometers away. At least 80 homes were destroyed and hundreds more were damaged in the Valdosta area.
