Thursday August 27th… Dear Diary. 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: Hurricanes Laura and Michael…Two Shots Over The Bow Warning Of Worse Storms To Come
Dear Diary. Last night and in 2018 I was amazed to see two perfectly formed hurricanes make landfall in the north Gulf coastal region. Both hurricanes Laura and Michael were strengthening as borderline CAT 4/5 systems right until landfall. Both now hold records for the strongest hurricanes to hit their respective areas, however where they made landfall was in relatively low populated regions of the Gulf Coast. Mexico City Beach, Florida and the surrounding Florida Panhandle and the Cameron/Lake Charles, Louisiana areas are populated by tens of thousands of people, not the millions say in Houston, New Orleans, Tampa, and Miami metropolitan areas. Of the two Michael affected more people in a more developed area, though. In 2019 it was feared that CAT 4/5 Dorian would directly hit Miami, but remained offshore, milling around the Bahamas before moving north and weakening. In short, the United States has been lucky, so far the last three years…but the 2020 Atlantic hurricane season is far from over.
Some day this century our big coastal cities will get hit directly by an extreme CAT 4/5 hurricane, causing a humanitarian crisis and crippling economies. The likelihood of such a tragedy is going to only get higher as we continue to pump carbon into the atmosphere via fossil fuel use.
Last night as I saw a horror show begin to take place in western Louisiana, I tweeted off this glib message:
Getting these responses:
To end this short little essay, all of this is so true. Heed the warnings of climate scientists. Do everything in your power to personally limit the burning of oil and gas and press for a quick transition to renewables in your area. If we can eventually get the planet to cool, your progeny will thank you because they won’t see as many mega-monster storms.
Today I will present the latest information on damage from Laura, which will be updated constantly, refreshed with the newest information appearing at the top of this list:
Here are more notes from Thursday on the western fires and the heatwave, which I’ve dubbed Beelzebub:
Here is one big overseas “ET” from Thursday:
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:
(If you like these posts and my work please contribute via the PayPal widget, which has recently been added to this site. Thanks in advance for any support.)
Guy Walton “The Climate Guy”