09/24/2024 | Press release | Distributed by Public on 09/24/2024 11:41
WASHINGTON (September 24, 2024)-Tropical Storm Helene formed in the Atlantic Ocean and is expected to rapidly intensify. The National Hurricane Center (NHC) predicts Helene will make landfall in Florida as a major hurricane in just two days. Helene's forecast from the NHC earlier today is unprecedented in that it called for a record rate of rapid intensification for a storm starting from 35 mph compared to all previous forecasts from the Center between 2000 and 2023.
"Helene's rapid intensification, fueled by anomalously warm waters in the Gulf of Mexico, bears the undeniable fingerprints of climate change," said Dr. Astrid Caldas, a senior climate scientist for community resilience at the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS). "Estimates from Climate Central suggest that the unusually high surface temperatures fueling Helene, about 2 degrees Celsius above normal, were made hundreds of times more likely because of climate change. While historically unprecedented, climate change is turning the summer months into a Danger Season, which will make unnatural disasters like rapidly intensifying Helene more common if policymakers fail to address the root cause of global heating: fossil fuel emissions."
Forecasters are projecting that on Thursday evening the storm will strike the Florida panhandle-an area that experienced widespread damage during Hurricane Idalia last year.
Complicating matters, the U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) has reported that the Disaster Relief Fund (DRF) is precariously low on funds to address the needs of communities and small businesses reeling from extreme weather and climate-fueled disasters. FEMA confirmed it has been operating on an "Immediate Needs Funding" basis since August 7, which means the agency has been prioritizing immediate lifesaving and life-sustaining response and recovery efforts while halting many categories of recovery funding for past disasters, as well as pausing unobligated grants, until Congress allocates more funding to the DRF.
"Without supplemental investments in the Disaster Relief Fund by Congress, FEMA will likely be stretched thin into the new fiscal year and challenged to meet its obligations to the communities still recovering from past hurricanes, wildfires and other climate impacts," said Shana Udvardy, a senior climate resilience policy analyst at UCS. "Basing disaster funding primarily on past averages is a recipe for failure. This storm is a blaring siren signaling that our policies need to catch up to our climate reality. It's paramount that Congress provides a permanent fix to the fund so FEMA can fulfill its mission unimpeded: getting communities back on their feet after dangerous and deadly climate change-fueled disasters."
The Union of Concerned Scientists also has experts available to speak about the following hurricane related topics:
Additional Resources and Analyses: