Every time a powerful hurricane comes along, the usual cry goes up that climate change is to blame, making them bigger and stronger than ever before.
It is the same this time with Hurricane Milton, which has just hit Florida, amid claims of “the worst to hit Florida in 100 years”, “storm of the century” and “a historic storm”. As with Hurricane Helene a couple of weeks ago, it no doubt will not take long for Weather Attribution organisations to claim that climate change made Milton nuch more likely to occur.
But is any of this true?
Let's start with the basic facts.
Milton made landfall yesterday morning just south of Tampa as a Cat 3 hurricane, with sustained winds of 120 mph and a minimum central pressure of 954mb. (Hurricanes are graded as Cat 1 to 5, with 5s being the strongest). On the ground, the highest sustained windspeeds were 78 mph, recorded on the coast at Venice just a few miles away from the eye of the storm.
By any measure, this was not in any way an exceptional storm at all. Florida has been hit by 41 hurricanes of Cat 3 strength or greater since records began in 1851, and in the U.S. as a whole Milton only ranks as the 75th most intense hurricane in terms of central pressure.
Every hurricane can be potentially deadly, every hurricane brings damage and flooding, but there is no evidence that Milton is any more than just another run
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I think it’s to try and fix an event in people’s minds by talking it up. It’s like the naming of storms in the UK. People don’t remember what really happened, but they do remember the hoo ha round it, ergo, it must have been bad. I looked at a few live streams in Florida during the hurricane, and it didn’t look out of the ordinary – in fact, if it had been that bad, I don’t think a Web cam would have survived.
Or the comms to it for sure – the disappointment in the newsreaders as it was reported was palpable
Agreed, it is all propaganda. The BBC showed a webcam seeded up to make it look more dramatic.
My elder brother has just completed his annual migration from his main residence in New Hampshire to Naples, Florida.
As Naples is 165 miles south of Tampa, I was concerned about the circumstances of his journey. He and his wife set off on Friday 5 October and completed the 1,500 mile journey on Monday night, having driven past Tampa, where he reported that the roads north were choked, as Tampa’s residents followed the mayor’s advice/instruction to get the hell out. Andy, on the other hand, had a stress-free journey south, and he even commented on the ready availability of charging points for his Tesla.
Yesterday, after the storm had passed, he reported that the maximum observed wind speeds at his property had been 35 mph and, although he’d deployed the storm shutters, there was never any concern about the integrity of the property.
His business partner, who had a property at Tarpon Springs, 30 miles to the north of the hurricane’s landfall (and just 4 feet above sea-level) had been instructed to evacuate his house, but had been able to monitor it through smart technology. The house remained undamaged, never lost its power supply, and the much-feared… Read more »
First hand info is always the best 👌
Nice one Steve
I was not surprised to hear Socialist Joe politicising the weather, par for the course. I was surprsied to hear deSantos going along with it, when a brief glimpse at Windy [weather forecasting channel] 3 days ago showed that Marlin was not that serious [given that Florida lies in the hurricane belt and must expect some bad weather..]. I’m guessing that >200 dead in H Helene made everyone super-cautious, that and the thought of getting some free greenbacks from FEMA.
Being Americans, they have started suing each other about hurricanes potentially causing delays to voting………. Oh well, takes their minds off their America’s Cup wipe-out I suppose 🙂
Notice that the war on “misinformation” is all the rage. There are all these official “factcheckers” working overtime trying to prevent all the views officialdom don’t like, but on the issue of climate and energy anything goes and the “factcheckers” are nowhere to be seen —–We regularly get Politicians, media and activists (which are often the same people) spouting evidence free drivel on climate and energy that is very easily checked. — (1) “Renewables are now cheaper than fossil fuels”—- FALSE. If you hammer fossil fuels with huge costs and give 100% subsidy to renewables, you have distorted the market so that it is absurd to make that claim, and in any case fossil fuels are full time energy and renewables are part time. (2) “Climate Change is happening because there is a huge consensus of scientists who say so”—–FALSE. Nothing happens because lot’s of people say so. (3) “Storms, floods and droughts are getting worse because of global warming”—-FALSE. Real world data indicates no such thing. —–(4) Sea levels are rising. —–This is trying to imply that sea level is rising because of global warming caused by humans, but sea levels have been rising for thousands of years and… Read more »
No points to be gained in checking those type of facts! 😉
Reality check: mankind has and does live in one of the longest and most stable sea level era’s of the last 20000 years!
Yes but humans will send that line into exponential increase if we don’t DO SOMETHING!!! ANYTHING!
I thought generally populations got wiser with better education and better understanding but it seems they are becoming more gullible doesn’t it?
…a very good point Dinger. Despite all the learning, enlightenment, and advances it seems that control of other humans remains the main agenda…
I came across my eldest’s Year 11 geography jotter [2006/07]. Top of the first page: “Weather – the day to day condition of the atmosphere. It includes temperature, sunshine, rainfall and wind. Climate – the weather condition of a place over many years” Who knew? Later there’s a detailed explanation of hurricanes. I can’t believe.they still teach such heresy, especially at GCSE level, hence the gullibility?
Depends where that education is coming from I’d say…
Anyone would think that Hollywood softened us up for the last 25 years with weather based disaster films, in which obscure or previously discredited scientists were able to single handedly convince the government of the error of our ways, save the day, get the girl, live happily ever after etc etc.