One Year After Hurricane Ian, Southwest Florida Still Struggling Physically, Mentally

Satellite view of catastrophic Hurricane Ian about to 
make landfall in southwest Florida one year ago today. 

 One year ago today, on September 28, 2022, Hurricane Ian, just shy of Category 5 strength, slammed into the area around Fort Myers Beach, Florida, killing at least 150 people and becoming the second most expensive United States weather disaster on record. 

I don't mark the anniversary of every hurricane, but Ian was such a monster that I can't avoid it. Thankfully, so far this year, we haven't had a repeat of Ian.  Hurricane Idalia on August 31 in northern Florida was really, really bad, but not at all in the same league as Ian. 

It was the fourth strongest hurricane on record to hit Florida. Two of the  top three hurricanes hit well before the extensive coastal development in Florida ever hit. 

Hurricane Andrew was the most recent of the big three, hitting in 1992. Andrew was incredibly devastating, but the worst of it barely missed super heavy populated Miami. Instead, it destroyed the town of Homestead, Florida, which had a population of 30,000, not hundreds of thousands, like southwestern Florida when Ian hit. 

Recovery has gone in fits and starts, and it will take years before places like Fort Myers Beach, Captiva, Sanibel Island and Pine Island. People whose homes were wrecked are still fighting and in some cases suing insurance companies. 

At least 90 percent of the buildings in Fort Myers Beach were damaged or destroyed. 

Hurricane Ian has of course faded from the headlines, except on this anniversary date. More recent mega-disasters, like the wildfires in Maui last month and the catastrophic floods in Vermont in July, have since came and gone from the headlines

In the months and years after a major disaster, the victims are largely forgotten, but they're still struggling. Fox 13 news in Tampa Bay reported this example, which I think is pretty representative of what people in the Ian region are going through: 

"'My house is still uninhabitable. It has even yet to start repairs because my insurance company won't approve it at all and FEMA did very little to help me. I'm paying an exorbitant amount of rent just to survive. I've lost a year of equity in my home. I'm barely making it. I could be homeless in the future,' said South Venice resident Carrie Smith."

Yes, businesses are gradually reopening, and many residents are moving back into newly repaired homes. But the pace of recovery from disasters like this is glacial. 

This is devastating for mental health. The Tampa Bay Times reports six suicides in the aftermath of Ian. The newspaper also says experts expect more suicides as victims hit one dead end after another, prevent them from moving on from the hurricane. 

I guess this is the most important lesson to take away after a big weather calamities. Let's face it, after a disaster, the people and corporations and governments that are supposed to help serious often let victims down. 

Mental health is a big, scary issue after a disaster. As worrying as the actual physical work of pulling your life back together again. Please, if you know somebody struggling after Vermont's flood this summer, try to help and support them as much as you can. 

Climate change is making these huge disasters more likely and more frequent. Climate change is not only a physical, global and development crisis. It's also a global mental health crisis. 

 

There Will Never Be Another Hurricane Ian Or Fiona

Damage from Hurricane Ian in Florida. Usually, the same
hurricane names are rotated through every six years, unless one
particular storm is super bad. Then the name is retired. 
So because of their power, there won't be another
Hurricane Ian or Hurricane Fiona. 

 The Powers That Be who name hurricanes rotate the same names every six years.

That is, unless a hurricane is so destructive and deadly that it is seared on the minds of its victims.  

So, say goodbye to any chance of another Hurricane Ian or Hurricane Fiona.   In the future, say hello to hurricanes Farrah and Idris. Hurricanes Ian and Fiona in 2022 definitely left their marks, and it's no wonder their names are being retired.

Hurricane Ian trashed Florida, and was one on of the costliest hurricanes on record for the United States. 

The long track of Hurricane Fiona caused a lot of damage in Puerto Rico before making a turn north and making a long journey to Nova Scotia and Newfoundland, Canada, unleashing perhaps the worst hurricane disaster in Canadian history. 

The World Meteorological Organization, which is in charge of hurricane names, has retired 94 names overall. A committee then comes up with replacement names

As the Washington Post reports: 

"The storm names come from a WMO committee composed of meteorology and hydrology experts from North America, Central America and the Caribbean. Official storm naming began in 1953 to ease communication around storm warnings and thus protect lives and property from life-threatening conditions."

As an aside, the entire planet is probably grateful I'm not in charge of naming hurricanes. I'd probably come up with names like Kudlow,  Beezle, Monkton, Tootsie or Skunk.  But I digress. 

For some reason, hurricanes that begin with the letter "I" are the most likely to be retired. Ian is the 13th "I" hurricane to have its name retired. The others are Ione in 1955, Inez in 1966k Iris in 2001, Isidore in 2002, Isabel in 2003, Ivan in 2004k Ike in 2008, Igor in 2010, Irene in 2011, Ingrid in 2013 Irma in 2017 and Ida in 2021.

Speaking of Hurricane Ian, the National Hurricane Center last month came out with a detailed analysis of that storm. The NHC issues final reports on most hurricanes months after they happen to share knowledge gained, lessons learned, etc. These reports also offer revisions to statistics about the hurricanes. 

In the case of Ian, the National Hurricane Center has upgraded Ian's peak strength from Category 4 to Category 5 when it was just off the coast of western Florida. Category 5 is the strongest strength ranking a hurricane can attain. Such storms have sustained winds of at least 157 mph. 

Winds were as high as 160 mph during Ian's peak.  The storm "weakened," if you can call it that, by the time it reached land in Florida, with top winds of "only" 150 mph. 

Experts are hoping hurricane season 2023 will be less intense than in recent years. An El Nino, which creates warmer water in the Pacific Ocean west of South America is developing. El Ninos tend to limit hurricanes in the Atlantic Ocean. 

Limit, but not eliminate. It only takes one to really raise havoc, unfortunately. 

 

2022 Was A Bad Disaster Year Across The Globe. More Data Is In

Destruction from Hurricane Ian in Florida in 
September, 2022. It was the world's most expensive
weather and climate related disaster of last year.

 The world was beset by around weather-related disasters in 2022 that caused well over $300 billion in damage, according to insurance analysts. 

The actual numbers depend on the analyst, each of which has different methods of establishing losses. 

As Jeff Masters in Yale Climate Connections writes, the insurance broker Gallagher Re counted 42 disasters costing $360 billion, with 39 percent of that being insured losses. 

Meanwhile, another insurance broker, Aon, says there were 37 weather related disasters in 2022 with a total economic loss of $313 billion. That's 4 percent above the inflation adjusted average for the 21st century so far. 

Insurers are seeing a distinct upward trend in the inflation-adjusted cost of disasters since about 1990 and that trend has accelerated in the past decade or so. 

As the insurance analysts note, it's difficult to tease apart what proportion of the disaster losses are brought on by climate change and which part of the problem is created by increases in wealth and exposure to potential disasters. 

Hurricane Ian in Florida during late September is an excellent case in point. It caused roughly a third of the insured and economic losses in the 2022 list of billion dollar disasters.

Climate change might have helped the hurricane reach the high intensity it reached. But the storm hit parts of Florida that have seen intense coastal development, despite the risk of destructive hurricanes with or without climate change. 

The year saw three so-called "mega disasters" defined as a calamity causing ay least $20 billion in damage. The three in 2022 were Hurricane Ian, a drought in the United States (about $21 billion in losses) and another drought in Europe (about $25 billion)

DEATHS

Heat waves tend to be the most deadly type of weather disaster. You wouldn't think so watching the news, because heat waves are simply not that photogenic. Heat waves are sort of the neutron bomb of weather calamities. Buildings, trees, and other property emerge from heat waves largely unscathed, but the human cost is immense.

This was true in 2022. The deadliest disaster last year was extreme heat waves in Europe, which caused about 40,000 direct and indirect deaths, according to a Gallagher Re analysis of country-level excess mortality statistics, as reported by Masters in Yale Climate Connections.  

In terms of direct deaths alone, the worst 2022 disasters were monsoons in India, with 2,047 fatalities and other monsoons in Pakistan, responsible for 1,735 deaths.  

Three African nations, Nigeria, South Africa and Somalia, had their costliest disaster on record in 2022. Nigeria suffered $4.2 billion in damage fro flooding; another flood in South Africa caused $3.5 billion in losses. 

Drought in Somalia that started in 2021 and continued well into 2022 caused $1.1 billion in damage. The figures are adjusted for inflation.  

2022 Hurricane Season Just Ended (Maybe): Not As Bad As Feared, But Still Awful, And Weird

Satellite view of Hurricane Ian just about to slam
into southwestern Florida on September 28.

Sometimes the end of a season is a good thing. The conclusion of hurricane season last week is one of those good things.  

The Atlantic Ocean's hurricane season runs from June 1 through November 30, though you can get a tropical storm sometimes outside of those dates. In fact, as I write this, a disturbance in the central Atlantic Ocean has a decent chance of becoming a subtropical or tropical storm this week.

Overall, this hurricane season was both less intense than in recent years and also less intense than had been predicted. 

As Jeff Masters, writing for Yale Climate Connections reports:

"The 2022 hurricane season draws to an official close on November 30, after generating 14 named storms, eight hurricanes, two major hurricanes, and an accumulated cyclone energy (ACE) of 95.  Those numbers compare with the 1991-2020 averages for an entire season of 14.4 named storms, 7.2 hurricanes, 3.2 major hurricanes and an ACE index of 123.

Thus, the season was near average for number of named storms and hurricanes, and below average for major hurricanes and ACE index, and it breaks an unprecedented streak of six consecutive years with an above average ACE index."

I'd better explain ACE index here. 

Accumulated cyclone energy, or ACE, is kind of complicated. Without getting totally in the weeds, it has to do with a tropical storm or hurricanes maximum sustained winds, as measured every six hours. 

It is a convenient way to compare hurricane seasons. A long lasting, strong hurricane will contribute many ACE points. Then again, a large swarm of modest tropical storms or relatively weak hurricanes would do the same.

We did see two or three really destructive, extreme hurricanes amid a season that featured plenty of weak, short-lived tropical storms. It only takes one or two hurricanes to really cause some pretty extreme disasters. We had that for sure in 2022.

The worst of the bunch was surely Hurricane Ian, which killed at least 145 people and caused more than $50 billion in damage. It was the fifth deadliest Atlantic hurricane of the past 60 years, Masters reports.

The National Hurricane Center recycles hurricane names every six years unless a particular hurricane is exceptionally destructive and/or deadly.  So I'm sure they'll ditch the name Ian, and come up with some other name for the "I" hurricane in six years. 

The 2022 hurricane season got off to a really quiet start, which surprised pretty much everybody. 

When there's a La Nina weather and ocean pattern, the Atlantic hurricane season is almost always pretty damn active. (La Nina is a cooling of the Pacific Ocean waters off the west coast of South America).

La Nina was big in 2020 and 2021 and we had plenty of tropical storms, including a pretty high number of early season storms. 

Satellite view of Hurricane Fiona dumping feet of rain on
Puerto Rico. Fiona later turned north, causing the worst
storm damage on record in Atlantic Canada.

We had no named storms in the Atlantic Ocean between July 3 and August 31, the first time that has happened since 1941, notes Dr. Phil Klotzbach, a Colorado State University hurricane expert.

Meteorologists are puzzling a bit over the lack of storms early in the season. For some reason, upper level winds over the Atlantic remained strong, which tore apart any system that wanted to become a tropical storm. Also atmospheric moisture over much of the Atlantic Ocean was lacking in July and August.

La Nina probably influenced the later part of the 2022 hurricane season, which was especially busy. October was super quiet, then November hit. 

November doesn't usually produce many tropical storms and hurricanes, and those that do form tend to be nothing burger tropical storms or brief, weak hurricanes. 

Here are the November stats, from Klotzbach:

-- November had three hurricanes (Lisa, Martin and Nicole, tying with 2011 with the most November hurricanes on record.

---Hurricanes Lisa and Martin had top sustained winds of 85 mph at exactly the same time in November. That's the first time two November hurricanes were simultaneously that strong since 1932.

--- Hurricane Lisa hit Belize on November 2 the first November hurricane in that Central American nation

---Hurricane Nicole was the latest calendar year hurricane to make landfall along the east coast of Florida. 

So let's face it, the marquee hurricanes in 2022 were Ian, Fiona and Nicole.

HURRICANE IAN

Hurricane Ian will be most remembered for its incredible storm surge around Fort Myers, Naples and Sanibel and Pine islands.

Masters in Yale Climate Connections again:

"The primary reason for Ian's high death toll is straightforward:  A large number of people in a vulnerable location being hit by a strong hurricane, increasing the risk of deaths. The amount of risky development that has occurred in southwest Florida, near sea level, on barrier islands, and on former wetlands - was a disaster waiting to happen, and it happened. Cape Coral, where some of Ian's deaths were reported, was a particularly vulnerable location because of unwise building practices."

In general, deaths from hurricanes in the United States had been declining, but Ian added more evidence that that lower death toll has bottomed out and reversed, as I noted in a post back in October.  Ian was the nation's sixth deadliest hurricane since 1963.

Hurricane Ian was also the eighth costliest United States hurricane, in a list corrected for inflation over the years. Ian caused at least $50 billion in damage.

HURRICANE FIONA

To be honest, it's not all that surprising that Hurricane Fiona caused so much trouble in Puerto Rico.  The island regularly gets hit by hurricanes.  Flash flooding on Puerto Rico's steep topography is inevitable. 

Still, rainfall on Puerto Rico was extreme even by their standards. Ponce received 31.34 inches of rain. Rio Cerrillos, Puerto Rico had 27.14 inches of rain within 24 hours, setting a new record on the island for most rain in that short of a time period. 

The island also has a criminally weak haphazard electrical grid, so power outages become widespread even in relatively mild tropical storms.

After trashing Puerto Rico Fiona took a sharp right hand turn and made a beeline into Atlantic Canada, with devastating results. 

Dying tropical storms and hurricanes hit parts of eastern Canada occasionally, but Fiona was especially concerning, and might well have been influenced by climate change. 

Water temperatures off the coast of New England and Canada were far above average, following a pretty consistent trend in recent years. The warm water allowed Fiona to maintain much of its strength, even as it was in the process of transitioning from a tropical system to an intense non-tropical system.

This meant Fiona's wind and storm surge were much worse than Atlantic Canada has seen from past tropical systems. Damage came to at least $495 million, making it the worst storm on record for this part of Canada.

HURRICANE NICOLE 

Hurricane Nicole demonstrated graphically how a previous hurricane can "prime the pump" and make a new hurricane much more damaging than it otherwise would be. 

Although Hurricane Ian primarily damaged southwestern Florida, Ian still caused a lot of beach erosion and other coastal damage along the east coast of Florida.

There was really no time to repair that damage before Nicole came ashore not far from Vero Beach in November.  Although Nicole arrived unusually late in the season, on November 10.  It was "only" a category one hurricane, with top winds of 75 mph.

A Florida hurricane of that strength would normally only cause minor to moderate storm surge damage, relatively light wind damage and some inland flooding. 

However, with the previous damage from Ian still there, Nicole caused enormous damage to coastal homes and high rises. Numerous homes, especially near and in Daytona Beach, toppled into the sea.  Several high rises were evacuated after being undermined by Nicole's storm surge.

These three destructive hurricanes show that even in what is considered a "meh" year for tropical storm activity, the United States and other nations can suffer extraordinary cruel blows from these storms.

U.S. Hurricane Deaths Have Been Declining Over The Past 100 Years, But Is That Changing?

Destruction on Sanibel Island, Florida from Hurricane Ian
A decades long trend in declining U.S. hurricane
deaths might be reversing. 

 The other day, I had a post in which I wondered about possible shortcomings related to evacuations ahead of last month's Hurricane Ian in Florida. 

This issue might have contributed to many of the 100 or so deaths - and still counting - that Hurricane Ian caused. 

I spotted an interesting recent article in the Washington Post that noted that in general, far fewer Americans die in hurricanes than say, a century ago.  

Warnings ahead of power hurricanes have gotten astronomically better since, say, 1950.  So, too, have evacuations, which likely have saved many hundreds of thousands of lives in the past few decades.

In the years around the turn of the 20th century, individual hurricanes killed thousands of people. In 1900, a hurricane ended the lives of about 8,000 people around Galveston, Texas.  A year before that, 3,400 Puerto Ricans died in a hurricane.

In the busy hurricane year of 1893 two hurricanes killed about 3,000 people, about half in Georgia, the other half in Louisiana. And a 1928 hurricane wiped away 1,800 Floridians. 

A database of hurricane deaths in the United States from 1851 to 2010 show that 24 hurricanes in that period each killed at least 100 people.  Only one of those deadly hurricanes was after 1972 - Hurricane Katrina in 2005, which caused the deaths of at least 1,200 people.  

It appears Katrina marked a turning point in the downward trend in U.S hurricane deaths. As the Washington Post notes, we're starting to see an uptick again, after 2010.  As we've seen, Hurricane Ian's death toll has already surpassed 100. 

The list of deadly hurricanes since 2005 continues to grow:

Ike in 2008 killed 112 people in Texas and Louisiana. 

Sandy in 2012 killed 147 in the northeastern United States. 

Maria killed 3,400 in Puerto Rico in 2017

Hurricane Ida last year came close, killed 87 Americans and another 20 in Venezuela. 

The main problem here is people are flocking to the coasts. For instance, the population of Lee County, Florida, which was hardest hit by Hurricane Ian, went from 618,754 in 2010 to 787,976 this year. according to U.S Census data. 

This increased population at the coasts makes it harder to get people out of the way of an approaching hurricane.  There's only so much the roads and other infrastructure can handle in a hasty evacuation.  Plus, a percentage of people won't evacuate no matter how much you beg them. A small percentage of a huge population can be a lot of people. 

I have to say climate change might be beginning to make the problem worse, too.  There's been a troubling trend of hurricane intensifying rapidly just before landfall.  That can catch people off guard, too late to flee ahead of a monster storm.

The base sea level is rising, too, because of climate change.  That makes the storm surges from hurricanes even worse than they'd otherwise be. 

By the way, because of the booming coastal population, hurricanes are getting way more expensive, too. Of the 20 most costly U.S. hurricanes, adjusted for inflation, all but two of the top 20 most expensive have occurred since 2001. Four (probably five if you count Ian) of the top six most expensive had hit since 2017. 

Hurricane Ian was clearly by far this year's most tragic storm.  Unfortunately, in the coming years, I fear we'll go through quite a few more Ians. 

Did Florida Botch Hurricane Ian Evacuations, And Did That Result In Unnecessary Deaths?

Extreme storm surge destruction from Hurricane Ian in 
Fort Myers Beach, Florida.  Should evacuation orders 
come sooner before the storm?  That's a hot debate
going on right now. 

Amid the rising death toll in Florida after Hurricane Ian, there's been a lot of chatter over whether evacuations ahead of the storm were botched, leading to additional casualties. 

The focus here is on Lee County, Florida, which contains the hardest hit communities, such as Fort Myers, Cape Coral, Sanibel and Pine Islands. 

As of yesterday, the death toll from Hurricane Ian had climbed to 109 people, including 55 deaths in Lee County. This toll is expected to rise further. 

The quote I keep hearing from people who didn't evacuate because forecasts had the storm going further north, toward Tampa.  I think this highlights how people don't understand the nuances of National Hurricane Center forecasts, despite their efforts to make things clear. 

National Hurricane Center forecasts include a projected path of a hurricane, along with something called the "cone of uncertainty."  Meteorologists draw a line suggesting where they think the eye of the storm will go.  Their maps include a shaded area on either side of this line.  That's the cone of uncertainty.  It indicates forecasters' suspicion that the storm could actually travel to the left or right of the projected path. 

The future paths of hurricanes are notoriously difficult to forecast. Every time the NHC updates their forecast, they update the expected path and also change.

On top of all this, the National Hurricane Center will often note, as they did in their forecasts for Ian, that dangerous conditions could well occur outside the "cone of uncertainty."

The storm hit on Wednesday, September 28, For more than five days before Ian hit, Lee County was within the "cone of uncertainty" or at the very least on the edge of it.  The National Hurricane Center also issued a storm surge watch at 11 p.m. Sunday, which raised the real possibility of that destructive storm surge in Lee County. The storm surge watch was upgraded to a warning at 5 p.m. Monday, September 27, which meant a life threatening storm surge was inevitable. 

However, Lee County officials, apparently clinging to earlier forecasts that Ian would head toward Tampa, did not order evacuations until Tuesday morning, just a day before the storm hit. 

That didn't give much time for people to get their act together, gather their stuff, pack their cars, and crawl through bumper to bumper traffic to get out of Dodge.  Meanwhile, to make things more difficult, tropical storm conditions had already started in the area by Tuesday afternoon.

Also, the National Hurricane Center did not extend hurricane warnings southward to include Lee County until Tuesday morning, the day before it actually hit.   The late breaking hurricane warning might have contributed to complacency in Lee County. 

As the Washington Post reports, both Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and President Biden's FEMA administrator, Deanne Criswell defended the delayed evacuation.

"Just 72 hours before landfall, the Fort Myers and Lee County area were not even in the cone of the hurricane,' Criswell said on ABC's This Week.  'And is continued to move south, the local officials immediately - as soon as they knew that they were in that threat zone - made the decisions to evacuate and get people to safety.'"

Again, this appears to me to be people who should have looked at the details and known better. It's true that at one point about 72 hours before landfall, Lee County was on the edge of the cone of uncertainty. 

I'm aware that I'm Monday morning quarterbacking, but honestly, local and federal officials should have recognized that Ian was an unusually large storm, so it would have wider ranging impacts than other storms. 

I think officials were remembering Hurricane Charley, a ferocious Category 4 hurricane that hit the same region back in 2004. However, Charley was much smaller in size than Ian.  Charley was essentially a grotesquely overgrown tornado that carved perhaps a 20 to 30 mile wide path of extreme wind damage. But the storm surge with Charley wasn't all that bad. 

Small-sized storms like Charley can't generate a daunting storm surge like a much bigger storm like Ian can. 

Another thing that should have been considered: Even if Hurricane Ian traveled well north of Lee County, its position would have still placed it in a storm surge danger zone.  On the east side of a northward traveling hurricane in the Gulf of Mexico, strong south to southwest winds would push an enormous amount of water toward the Florida Gulf Coast. 

This surge would hit well east or south of the hurricane's eye. For instance, Naples, Florida is a good 43 miles south of Fort Myers. Naples still got nailed with destructive storm surges. 

Here's one thing the Washington Post reported that I was unaware of, and I guess emergency officials in Lee County didn't know:  Generally speaking, there's still a 30 to 40 percent chance that any given hurricane will travel outside the cone of uncertainty. I'm wondering if this fact should have been better known. 

Hurricane Ian was tied for the fifth strongest hurricane on record to strike the United States. Life saving evacuations ahead of such an extreme storm are incredibly complex.  Meteorologists at the National Hurricane Center are among the best of the world, but science is not there yet in terms of accurate forecasting the power and path of hurricanes.  

Despite superhuman efforts, forecasts of the strength and track of hurricanes are usually a little off even 24 hours before they hit, never mind three or four days ahead of the strike. This alone makes evacuation decisions hard.

Hurricane Ian hit a low-lying section of Florida whose population is rapidly rising.  This also makes evacuations and planning more difficult. Plus, climate change is making hurricanes even more unpredictable. More of them are rapidly intensifying just before landfall, like Ian did. Climate change is making the hurricanes even wetter, so flooding can be worse with these things. 

We'll continue to see plenty more finger pointing about evacuations ahead of Hurricane Ian.  It's too late to save anyone who died in the hurricane.  It's imperative we learn the lessons of this one. Powerful hurricanes can hit the United States coastline anywhere between Brownsville, Texas and Eastport, Maine, along with our island territories.

We will see plenty more Hurricane Ians in the future.  Lessons learned from Ian may one day save your life.  

Death Toll Uncertain In Florida As Hurricane Ian Poised To Hit South Carolina

Photo from CBS Miami shows utter destruction in
Fort Myers Beach, Florida.

 The big mess left behind in Florida is making it impossible to assess the losses both in terms of life and property from Hurricane Ian. 

More damage is on the way as a rejuvenated Ian is poised to hit South Carolina today with a storm surge and winds as high as 85 mph. Hopefully, this will be Ian's big last gasp.  Although the hurricane isn't as strong as it was when it hit southwest Florida, it's already causing trouble even before making landfall.

As of earlier this morning, parts of downtown Charleston, South Carolina and other sections of the city were beginning to flood from a storm surge. The flooding is expected to worsen as heavy rains continue and tides rise.  Flooding is also forecast deep into South and North Carolina today. 

Meanwhile, Florida is only just beginning to pick up the pieces as many areas remain flooded. Emergency responders did rescue at least 700 people in Florida Thursday.  This included the miraculous rescue of a man found alive under a large pile of broken lumber - the apparent remains of a house in Fort Myers Beach.  At least 2.1 million utility customers in Florida still had no electricity as of early this morning. 

So far, the Associated Press has confirmed six deaths, but that total will rise. There's still a lot of missing person reports to sift through, debris to search through and reports to coordinate.  Many areas remained flooded, and survivors were gradually being taken out in small boats and kayaks. This will take awhile.

I am hoping the death toll does not exceed 100, as some Florida officials feared yesterday. I'm also hoping most everybody left the hardest hit places like Fort Myers Beach and Sanibel Island before the storm. Areal footage shows many homes swept clean away, leaving only bare concrete slabs behind.  If anyone was in those now gone homes, they didn't survive. 

In hardest hit areas of Lee and Charlotte counties in Florida, communications were spotty at best, with cell service severely limited. Cell phone companies were rushing in portable cell towers to help with this issue.

Here in Vermont, the only effects from Ian will be from its outflow. Hurricanes are like chimneys, spewing heat and moisture into the air. That outflow takes the form of a vast shield of high, relatively thin clouds. Those clouds were moving into Vermont this morning and will linger until a cold front arrives early Sunday.

Those high clouds will help prevent another frost from occurring tonight, but the cold front will usher in a renewed risk for frosts and freezes Sunday and Monday nights.

Meanwhile, the tropics look blessedly quiet, other than Ian.  A tropical depression in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean dissipated yesterday. A new disturbance just moving off the African coast will need to be watched for possible development into a tropical storm or hurricane. But if that happens, it'll take a few days to do so. It's unknown yet if this will threaten any land areas. 

Hundreds Feared Dead in Florida Hurricane Ian Hit Disaster Zone

Inside a home in Fort Myers, Florida being
hit by storm surge. Note the water outside
more than halfway up the doors.

 Swaths of southwestern Florida are practically flattened this morning in the wake of Hurricane Ian and unfortunately, early signs are we're going to find out about way too many deaths from this.  

As I write this, the sun has only been up for an hour or two in Florida, and emergency workers are only now starting to pick their way through blocked, flooded streets to see if they can rescue anyone from this catastrophe. 

"'I definitely know the fatalities are in the hundreds,' Lee County Sheriff Carmine Marceno told Good Morning American Thursday. 'There are thousands of people that are waiting to be rescued.'

 Marceno said thousands of 911 calls came in pleading for rescue, but roads are flooded or blocked by debris and bridges are compromised.

He later said he does not know exactly how many people died, and he's hoping the number is smaller than he fears.

To get an idea how endangered people who stayed behind were, click on this link to show how the intense winds decimated what had been a rather nice mobile home park in Placida, Florida.  And this park was not hit by the even more deadly storm surge that swept through heavily developed cities like Fort Myers. 

A lot of people in Fort Myers probably had little experience with hurricanes. The city's population haas been rapidly exploding as people move there. The city had about 65,000 residents a decade ago, and now has about 90,000.

So far at least, the mayor of Fort Myers said there are no known deaths in Fort Myers. 

However social media has been ominous. Twitter, Facebook and other sites were filled with pleas from people trapped in homes, some of which were flooded to the roofs. 

More from the Associated Press:

"In Port Charlotte, the storm surge flooded a hospital's emergency room even as fierce winds ripped away part of the roof from the intensive care unit, according to a doctor who works there. 

Water gushed down into the ICU, forcing the to evacuate their sickest patients - some on ventilators - to other floors,' said Dr Birgit Bodine of HCA Florida Fawcett Hospital. Staff members used towels and plastic bins to try to mop up the sudden mess."  

The hospital has four floors, but only two can be used now, post hurricane. And the hospital is bracing for waves of people injured by the hurricane. 

At least nine hospitals in the region also have no water service this morning, so I don't know how they're going to deal with that.  

The remains of the causeway to Sanibel Island.
Part of it a bridge, collapsed into the Gulf of Mexico.

The Washington Post offered a glimpse of how frantic and helpless emergency services in Naples, Florida felt during the worst of Ian. They quoted Todd Terrell of United Cajun Navy, 350 of whom were in southwest Florida to help with rescues. 

"'The fire department has a foot of water in it, ' he said. 'There's people stranded. We just got a call for a 101 and a 98 year old lady, and we cannot get to them in Naples. There's nothing we can do.'

'The calls that we're getting, my God: a 91 year old man on oxygen floating in his house, and he's struggling to breathe. We just got a call from an apartment building: Their roof collapsed. The calls are coming in, frantic calls. The winds are too bad with the power lines down at night, but we got guys that are willing to risk that.'"

Part of the causeway to Sanibel Island collapsed, so you now can't get onto or off the island. It's unknown how many people tried to ride out the storm on hard hit Sanibel Island. 

I also don't know if people who remained in the danger zones were able to move up to higher floors as the storm surge came in. It was fast. A traffic cam in Sanibel Island  time lapsed just 30 minutes showing an intersection going from fine to deep flood waters.   

Winds diminished as the storm moved inland, which happens with every hurricane. But torrential rains continue and flash flood emergencies continue across much of northern and central Florida. Water rescues are ongoing, but they're difficult as rains continue, making it impossible to reach people in need.

It's way too early to assess how much monetary damage Ian is causing, but it will surely be in the tens of billions of dollars. Maybe over $100 billion. 

The humanitarian disasters, both in the U.S. and overseas keep coming.  Ian was probably made worse by climate change, so I would rate this as yet another in a long and fast growing litany of climate disasters. 

CBS News video of Hurricane Ian. Click on this link or view below if you see image:

Ian, As Expected, Creates A Florida Catastrophe

As I write this, the extreme destruction continues form Hurricane Ian in Florida, with widespread reports of extreme storm surges and powerful winds. 

Storm surge almost reaching to the second floor of 
houses in Fort Myers Beach, Florida. Photo from
Twitter via @itsbethbooker

Officially, Hurricane Ian made landfall at 3:05 p.m. around Cayo Costa, Florida, with top wind speed of 150 mph.  Those winds will diminish slowly, and the storm surges will begin to retreat this evening. 

But much of the damage is already done, and there's more destruction to come as Ian makes its way northeastward through central and northern Florida. 

I've seen no reports of deaths yet, but that will change. A storm this powerful is unsurvivable for people caught in the wrong places. Such as a house that floats away in a storm surge, or gets crushed by a large, falling tree.

Plus, more people will die in the aftermath, unfortunately.  In fact, sometimes the majority of deaths from a hurricane come after the storm has ended. People die of carbon monoxide poisoning because of a wrongly placed generator.  They pass away from heat exhaustion in the air conditioning-free home atmosphere during lengthy power outages. They die in cleanup accidents. Maybe a chain saw kicks back in a fatal way. 

Yeah, it's pretty grim. 

Next up will be inland flooding. I've already seen a report of 18 inches of rain between Punta Gorda and Sarasota, Florida, so you can imagine how bad this will be as the heavy rain spreads towards Orlando and then northeast Florida. 

Although reports are only trickling in due to the ongoing storm, it appears that Fort Myers is perhaps the hardest hit city so far.

Much of Fort Myers sank beneath storm surges exceeding ten feet. The flooding includes the city's downtown. Some houses floated away. Others were flooded all the way to the roof. New video also shows houses beginning to float in Naples, Florida. More than a million Floridians were without power late this afternoon, and that number was rising. 

Another sad look at Fort Myers,
Beach, Florida today

Since the eye of the storm just crossed the coastline about an hour or two  before I wrote this, wind and water were still extreme in western Florida. 

I guess it's so big at the moment that I can't fully grasp the extent of this disaster yet, so I'm concentrating on relatively small details regarding this storm. 

One thing that struck me is that devastating Hurricane Charley in 2004 came ashore in Cayo Costa, Florida in the 3 o'clock hour, just like Ian.  Top wind speeds in both Charlie and Ian were about the same, but here's the difference.

Hurricane Charley was small in size compared to giant Hurricane Ian that Charlie's  eye and eye wall - the circle of intense thunderstorms around the eye - could easily fit within the eye of Ian with plenty of room to spare.

That's a big part of the reason why Ian's storm surge is so destructive. A large hurricane can stir up a much more severe surge than a smaller-sized storm.  

By the way, I'm a little tired of the long tradition of reporters standing out in the middle of the wind and water and waves and yelling into the camera. It's pretty dangerous. And we don't need a person standing out in the extreme conditions to understand the conditions are, well, extreme. 

Today, the Weather Channel's Jim Cantore got hit by a large branch in the wind. Thankfully, he wasn't hurt. And Reed Timmer wandered into the back yard of a oceanfront house as the storm surge roared in. 

Speaking of dangerous, can I just say a few employers really suck. They can be really evil, at least according to some reports I've seen on social media. 

Since it's social media, I can't absolutely verify if these stories are true, but it seems we're back to profits over people and safety. 

One company apparently told employees who are forced to evacuate low lying areas, to take their at-home work equipment to shelters, and set up there, and work, dammit! I'm not sure how you'd get sufficient wifi, space and quiet to work at an emergency shelter, but full speed ahead, apparently! 

Another employer told employees to come to work as their building is supposedly safe, but as a concession, can bring their children and pets. How accommodating! Like is the building really safe?  Like the Amazon warehouse and candle factory in last December's tornadoes?

Even though Ian will be weaker, expect flooding rains in parts of Georgia and the Carolinas as Ian pushes northward. 

By the way, in case you were wondering, Ian doesn't look like it will have any effects on us here in Vermont. Dry high pressure settling south from Quebec this weekend will push moisture from Ian eastward out to sea far south of here. 

 

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Catastrophic Hurricane Ian To Be One Of Most Expensive Weather Disaster In U.S. History

Satellite image of Hurricane Ian this morning as
it got ready to make landfall along the west
coast of Florida later today. 

 The news with Hurricane Ian just seems to be getting worse and worse. 

I awoke earlier this morning to the news that Ian was just shy of Category 5 status, with top winds of 155 mph.  It is now now on track to be among the most intense hurricanes on record to hit the United States. 

If Ian maintains those 155 mph winds at landfall, it will be the fifth strongest hurricane to hit the U.S.  Even if it does start to weaken before landfall, it's too late. It won't weaken enough to prevent most of the inevitable carnage with this.

I expect there's a high chance that Ian will be among the top five, or at least top 10 most expensive hurricanes in U.S. history. 

The winds will cause immense destruction, but that's the least of it.  

Incredible storm surge flooding in populated areas is expected to unfold as Ian makes landfall probably mid to late afternoon today. The storm surge might be as high as 18 feet above normal water levels in and around Port Charlotte.

 That figure is actually higher than forecasts from earlier this morning. The extent of the storm surge also depends on the timing of high tides, of course. 

There's more bad news there. As of this morning, the storm surge is expected to come in roughly around the time of high tides.  

Storm surges are easily the most dangerous of all the deep hazards of a strong hurricane. The quick surges of water are accompanied by battering waves because of all the wind. Even in a protected harbor the winds stir up strong currents and waves.  

A disturbing screen shot I took of the Naples, Florida pier
at around 10:15 a.m. People foolishly there as Hurricane Ian's
immense storm surge began to make its way toward shore.

So not only does the water get into buildings, it batters those very buildings. I imagine many will not hold up under the onslaught. 

I saw some useful slide maps on a Twitter thread this morning by Evan Fisher, and you can click on this link to see. It shows the areas expected to be inundated by Ian's storm surge in Cape Coral, Port Charlotte, Punta Gorda and Naples, Florida. 

The maps show thousands of buildings flooded. I hope all of the 2 million people who were asked to evacuate did so. Sometimes, people don't evacuate because they can't afford it. Gas, lodging, food, everything else costs money and not everybody has that saved up. I don't know the income levels of the neighborhoods in Evan Fisher's flood maps, so I don't know how big a problem this is.

Now, if anybody changed their minds, it's too late. Conditions outside are too rough to evacuate as of this morning.  All anybody can do if they didn't evacuate but should have is to hunker down and hope for the best. 

The only glimmer of good-ish news in this storm surge forecast is it now appears Hurricane Ian will make landfall south of Tampa Bay, not north of that location.  That will somewhat limit the storm surge in Tampa Bay. Forecasts there call for four to six feet of surge. That's really, really bad, but not as terrible as it could have been. 

The other enormous problem with Ian will be inland flooding. The storm's forward motion is at a crawl, so rainfall rates of up to three inches per hour will linger over the same spots for a long time. Up to 20 inches of rain is in the forecast for western, central and northeastern Florida. Extreme flooding will result. 

This particular danger zone includes the Orlando metro area, which can expect more than a foot of rain and winds gusting to well over hurricane force at times. Not surprisingly, Disney World is closed, for only the eight time since 1971.

Even before the main show, Ian has already caused a lot of damage. Key West suffered its third highest storm surge on record last night. Outer rain bands spit out tornadoes that caused damage in scattered areas of the state

Conditions were rapidly going downhill in southwestern Florida by mid-morning. As of mid-morning in southwestern Florida, wind gusts were approaching hurricane strength along the coast. Heavy rain was lashing most of western and central Florida already. 

Up until now, this had been a fairly quiet hurricane season, at least compared to recent years. But they've always said even in quiet years, it only takes one to create a cataclysm.  Ian is tragically proving that point. 

 

Monday Was An Interesting Vermont Weather Day But All Eyes On Ian

A thunderstorm that abruptly formed over St. Albans,
Vermont late Monday afternoon ended with this rainbow

 Monday was kind of a day for weather geeks like me in Vermont. 

There wasn't any super extreme weather, but it got interesting. Video is at the bottom of this post. 

A pretty strong disturbance in the air flow was approaching us from New York Monday morning and early afternoon. Ahead of this disturbance,the sun broke through and it was actually an unexpectedly nice, mild day. 

Sunshine boosted temperatures into the 60s to near 70, which destabilized the atmosphere some.

A band of showers and thunderstorms approached. The northern end of it in particular weakened noticeably on approach to Vermont. But as this band got into the Champlain Valley, thunderstorms erupted along the back end of it, right before a break in the clouds.

The result was some surprise downpours, thunder and rainbows. The neat thing about it is how fast those storms developed. Here in St. Albans, it appeared moderate showers would pass by to our north and south with lighter rain for us. 

Then a fairly strong thunderstorm developed directly overhead. Same thing happened just to the east of Burlington, and in a few other locations. 

As noted, the video I took of all this shows how the sky began to show instability, the band of rain approached, and then things suddenly erupted into storms, then sun and rainbows.  The video is below the update on Ian, that I'll get to in a bit. 

I saw no reports of severe weather with this. Just a fun, late season, thundery turn of events. All garden variety in Vermont, as opposed to the terrible threat from Hurricane Ian in Florida

HURRICANE IAN

The hurricane was centered over western Cuba this morning with a large eye visible there from radar images. 

Top winds had increased overnight to 125 mph.  After Ian emerges from the northwestern coast of Cuba later this morning, it will have an opportunity to strengthen further over very warm water. 

There's another problem with Ian other than its strength. Its forward motion will be very slow as it heads toward and into Florida over the next couple of days.  

Satellite image from this morning shows the eye of 
Hurricane Ian getting ready to emerge off of 
western Cuba into Gulf of Mexico. The warm
water in the Gulf should strengthen this 
dangerous storm even more as it heads toward Florida.

That would prolong the opportunity for more and  more water to be pushed onshore with the storm surge, making it worse.  The most intense storm surge would be right where Ian comes ashore, and just a little to the south and east of that landfall. 

The problem is, although forecasters have narrowed down where they think Ian will come ashore, there's still some question as to whether it will come in near or north of Tampa Bay, or a little south of that. Any of these paths will be catastrophic, but if it moves right over or a tiny bit to the north of Tampa Bay, the damage will be exponentially worse. 

Currently, forecasters think the worst storm surge will be somewhere between Fort Myers and Tampa Bay. 

The slow movement will also prolong the torrential rainfall, which in turn would make the flooding worse. 

At the moment, they're expecting 10 to 16 inches of rain in parts of western and central Florida, with some areas closing in on two feet. Remember, also, all that excessive water trying to drain off the land would get blocked by the storm surge as the water on land tries to reach the sea and bays. 

The weather is already deteriorating in Florida with heavy rains across southern portions of the state. Tropical storm conditions are expected by later today, and hurricane conditions by Wednesday morning. 

Everybody who had been ordered to evacuate and hasn't yet, should leave now if not sooner.  It was heartening in a strange way to see pre-dawn traffic on Interstate 4 eastbound jammed up as people fled coastal homes and went inland. 

Anyone in Florida who has not completed their preparations for Ian should get it done today, preferably this morning. 

VIDEO:

Sunny day turns briefly dark and stormy in St. Albans, Vermont but the end rewards us with sun showers and rainbows. Click on this link to view, or if you see image below, click on that. The beauty of an autumn storm. 

Wet Vermont, The Hurricanes Continue, Including A Nasty Philippines Surprise

Sunflowers do their best to brighten a fading autumn
garden on a damp Monday morning in St. Albans, Vermont.

Good Monday to all!

Given the weather pattern, we'll stick with the format we had yesterday, to update a somewhat soggy Vermont, since it's our home state, then move on to hurricanes. 

Spoiler: Vermont's weather will continue to be much, much tamer than in all those hurricane zones. 

But you knew that already.   So on to the damp details.  

Rain moved in a little ahead of schedule in Vermont Sunday afternoon. That's OK. Even though it's been quite wet this month,  rain is still needed. Ground water in much of the state has not fully recovered from a dry summer. 

Yesterday's rains brought the month's precipitation total in Burlington to 6.14 inches. We're now at the 8th wettest September on record. We might move a little higher in the rankings this week, as some more rain is due. Nothing extreme, but precipitation chances are pretty high early this week. 

Unfortunately, once again, the northwest corner of Vermont is generally expected the most rain, with more than a half inch through Wednesday. This part of the state doesn't really need the rain that much. Meanwhile, the southeastern part of Vermont, which really does need more wetting is expected to get the least -barely a quarter inch, if that. 

We have a little break in the action this morning, with nothing more than scattered, light showers. And the sun might even break through the clouds in some spots at times, imagine that!

But another round of showers comes through this afternoon.  We might even have enough instability in the air to trigger a few thunderstorms in the mix.   

A pocket of chilly air will hover thousands of feet above us, which will contribute to instability. Any sun this morning might add a little more. So, there'a chance that a couple storms might contain some strong gusty winds and small hail. 

Most of us will escape that, but NOAA's Storm Prediction Center does have most of Vermont in a marginal risk zone for severe storms. 

Tomorrow will only bring a chance of scattered showers. They'll be more numerous on Wednesday, but again, nothing too heavy. Another spoiler:  No guarantees yet, but chances are increasing that the remnants of Hurricane Ian, after it moves ashore later this week, will get shunted out to sea to our south, so at this point the storm won't affect Vermont much, if at all. 

So let's talk about Ian, as it's the big news of the day

HURRICANE IAN

Hurricane Ian south of Cuba this morning, with
its expected target Florida further north. 

It was fascinating, if a little horrifying to watch Ian on satellite images on Sunday. In the morning, it was weak, but it had taken on that "look."  The storm had become symmetrical, and it took on the look of a hurricane, even though the storms swirling around the center seemed weak.

At first, anyway. Ian is now undergoing a rapid intensification. It was up to 75 mph this morning, a Category 1 storm. By the time Ian reaches western Cuba early Tuesday morning, it's expected to be a 130 mph powerhouse. 

Computer models remain stubbornly divided on the path of Ian after Cuba.  Florida is under the gun, but will it be an area on the west coast of the state near or a little north of Tampa? Or will it hit the panhandle, up by Pensacola or Panama City?

By the time Ian gets up to a spot off or near the west coast of Florida, forecasters think it might start to weaken. Strong winds aloft and dry air from the northwest would gradually take the power away from the storm. 

Of course, if the weakening trend begins just as Ian is making landfall say, a little north of Tampa, it won't matter all that much, as it will still be a major hurricane. 

If Ian takes a course toward the Florida panhandle, it will have a greater shot at weakening noticeably before landfall, but that doesn't mean anyone is out of the woods.  

Often, when a hurricane starts to weaken offshore before hitting land, the oceans beneath the storm doesn't immediately get the memo.

The big storm surge that was building when the hurricane was at peak intensity keeps going as the storm itself begins to fade. The most famous example of this might be Hurricane Katrina in 2005.  It was a monster category 5 storm in the middle of the Gulf of Mexico, but weakened to Category 3 at landfall. 

However, the storm surge was still Category 5 even after Katrina began to diminish, and New Orleans ended up drowning.  

I'm not saying Hurricane Ian will be another Katrina, but Florida better keep an eye on storm surges in particular. That's especially true if the storm comes close to Tampa Bay. 

No matter which of the two paths Ian takes, it's trajectory would shove water up into Tampa Bay, so I'd expect at least some storm surge flooding there later this week. Remember, storm surges are the most dangerous hazard from a hurricane.  Just ask the people up in Atlantic Canada, who dealt with Fiona's surge over the weekend. 

Elsewhere in the Atlantic Ocean, it's gotten a bit quiet again, which is a good thing. Tropical storms Gaston and Hermine have dissipated. 

There's a disturbance roughly halfway between Africa and the Lesser Antilles that has a strong chance at developing into a tropical depression soon. So far,  it's not any kind of immediate threat. 

TYPHOON NORU

In the Philippines, a typhoon this weekend created a nasty, dangerous surprise. 

Typhoon Noru slammed a large, heavily populated section of the nation Sunday. 

Here's how Jeff Masters and Bob Henson put it, writing in Yale Climate Connections:

"Typhoon Noru put on a spectacular, unexpected and extremely dangerous rapid intensification feat in the waters just east of the Philippines on Saturday,becoming one of the fastest-intensifying cyclones in modern Earth history. Noru's peak 1-minute wind strength, as gauged by the Joint Typhoon Warning Center increased from 50 mph tropical storm strength) at 2 p.m. EDT Friday to 155 mph (top end of the category 4 range) at 2 p.m. EDT Saturday."

Noru ended up making landfall in the Philippines with top wind speeds that had decreased just slightly to 130 mph. 

That storm has already killed at least five people. The five were rescuers trying to retrieve people from floodwaters when a wall collapsed on them. 

Noru also forced tens of thousands of people to evacuate and created widespread flooding. In the capitol, Manila, classes and government agencies closed as the storm lashed the vast city with heavy rain and wind. 

VIDEO

If you'd like an idea of the kind of destruction a hurricane storm surge can cause, watch this incredibly sad news report from Port aux Basques, Newfoundland, Canada. Click on this link if you don't see the image, below. Otherwise click on image to watch on YouTube