• last year
On "Forbes Newsroom," AccuWeather's Lead Hurricane Meteorologist Alex DeSilva discussed Florida's shocking rainfall record.

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Transcript
00:00Hide from the wind, run from the water. So if you're on a coastal community listen
00:05to the government officials. What else can people do to prepare for hurricane
00:09season this year? Yeah I mean people can just have a plan in place just know what
00:14they're going to do you know you know are you going to if a hurricane is on
00:18your doorstep where are you going to move to if you're told to evacuate are
00:22you gonna go stay with family in a different part of the state are you
00:26going to you know be with friends in you know a more inland community because
00:31essentially you don't have to evacuate all that far we just want people to get
00:37away from the ocean so even if you move inland by you know 20 miles that can be
00:42more than enough to keep you safe of course you know you don't want to be
00:46driving around in the hurricane you want to avoid flooded roadways and stuff like
00:51that however but we just want people to get away from the coast is that is the
00:55deadliest area where you can be move away from the coast and get to a sturdy
00:59shelter somewhere inland if you have family that live you know few hundred
01:04miles inland and you're comfortable making the drive by all means go for it
01:07but you really don't have to go all that far we just want people to move away
01:11from the ocean move away from the ocean so that makes me wonder about August
01:16vacations on the coast on the ocean for folks who may not have planned their
01:20summer 2024 travel is your recommendation go west or you know don't
01:26travel up and down the East Coast because it's going to be a decently bad
01:30hurricane season I mean I don't think people should cancel their plans but I
01:34think people should just be aware of what's going on and that it could be a
01:37busy season you know they off some some travel companies they offer travel
01:41insurance that could potentially reimburse you in the sense that you
01:45let's say you're taking a cruise and it misses some ports because of you know
01:50inclement weather there are some agencies that offer kind of insurance to
01:54kind of you know get your money back or get a portion of your money back if a
01:58hurricane or something threatens your weather so that might be something to
02:01consider but no I don't think people should just outright cancel their plans
02:05it's not the end of the world just want to be aware of what's going on and and
02:09you know just get out we still want people to go out and enjoy their summer
02:13as best that they can but just pay a little bit extra attention I think to
02:17the forecasts this summer as it could be a more active year than what is typical
02:21so a more active hurricane season and in the meantime record rainfall in Florida
02:26and we saw extreme heat in the southwest parts of the US last week you alluded to
02:31the the warming of the ocean and how deep that is so broadly speaking how
02:38responsible is climate change for what we are seeing right now and we'll see
02:43this summer I think it does play some role we are seeing warming oceans I mean
02:48that's just you know what we've been seeing here over the last 50 years or so
02:51like I said 2023 broke the record for the warmest Atlantic temperatures on
02:57record 2024 might rival or even beat 2023 so we are seeing a steady climb in
03:03the amount of ocean heat that is in the oceans and as we go forward it's likely
03:09to continue I would think that we're gonna see warmer and warmer ocean
03:14temperatures overall and that can lead to stronger systems the big thing that
03:19we're gonna have to watch out for is rapid intensification that's kind of the
03:23thing that you know is correlated to these warmer ocean waters you know where
03:28systems can just blow up really really quickly can go from a tropical storm to
03:33a hurricane or even a major hurricane in a very short window of time I think as
03:38we move into the future we may see that happen more frequently these rapid
03:42intensifications but there actually is research out there that is showing that
03:46with a warming planet we may actually not see more storms overall because of
03:52what we call wind shear a warmer planet may actually impose more wind shear
03:57across the Atlantic Basin which essentially is a change in wind
04:01direction and wind speed with height as you go up into the atmosphere and the
04:06best way I like to explain wind shear to people is if you think of a stack of
04:09pancakes you want your stack of pancakes to stand nice and vertically tall you
04:13don't want it flopping over onto the floor now tropical systems are very
04:18similar in the fact that they like their cloud tops to just grow straight up into
04:22the atmosphere so when there's a lot of conflicting winds essentially winds
04:26moving at different directions and essentially knock over that stack of
04:29pancakes and so if you don't want to see a lot of tropical systems you actually
04:33want a lot of wind shear across the Atlantic Basin because it can
04:37essentially you know hold back development now there has been some
04:41research being shown that as we enter a more warming planet there might actually
04:45be more bouts essentially of more wind shear across the basin which actually
04:50might keep kind of the numbers of tropical systems from you know we might
04:55not see like 30 or 40 you know we might you know you know keep around average or
05:01maybe a little bit above average however a warming planet is more of a concern
05:06for rapid intensification so we may not see more storms but the storms we do see
05:11might be stronger and might intensify quicker

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