The main purpose of this ongoing blog will be to track United States extreme or record temperatures related to climate change. Any reports I see of ETs will be listed below the main topic of the day. I’ll refer to extreme or record temperatures as ETs (not extraterrestrials).😉
Main Topic: Delta Bears Down On Louisiana
Dear Diary. On this Thursday we have a strengthening hurricane slated to make landfall in western Louisiana late Friday, probably as a strong CAT2 system. Models have been amazingly consistent with the timing, strength, and location at landfall of the system since Tuesday. Thankfully, when Delta was bearing down on Cancun and Cozumel, the system weakened to a CAT2 from a CAT4, so we might have a few surprises left before late Friday given how fickle hurricanes can be.
Even though Cancun didn’t see a major hurricane, the city did take sustain widespread damage:
Delta is a typical early October hurricane as of this writing. It doesn’t exude any characteristics we can associate with climate change, but it did in the Caribbean before weakening due to some mid-level shear near the Yucatan Peninsula:
After reassessments are made, Delta could be the fastest tropical system in the Atlantic Basin to ramp up from a depression to CAT4 status. In a warming world, rapid intensification is what we should expect from hurricanes given higher sea surface temperatures, provided that the overall atmospheric environment is conducive for strengthening. Bob Henson, who writes now for Yale’s Climate Connections, did put out this note from Dr. Kim Wood on Delta a few days ago:
We definitely don’t want to see more rapidly developing hurricanes because these will lead to shorter times to give the public warning. Also, “RDH’s” tend to be very destructive when moving inland during development due to enhanced convection, which worsens wind gusts. Delta is forecast to be deteriorating upon landfall, so perhaps if we are fortunate, it won’t be horrendously destructive. We will see.
Others agree:
Today I will be listing items in association with Delta below. The most recent items, which I will be updating frequently, will be at the top of this list:
Here is more climate and weather news from Thursday:
(As usual, this will be a fluid post in which more information gets added during the day as it crosses my radar, crediting all who have put it on-line. Items will be archived on this site for posterity. In most instances click on the pictures of each tweet to see each article. The most noteworthy items will be listed first.)
Now here are some of today’s articles and notes on the horrid COVID-19 pandemic:
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Guy Walton “The Climate Guy”