Hurricane Ian made landfall on Florida’s southwestern coast Wednesday as a powerful Class 4 storm, making it certainly one of solely 15 Class 4 or 5 hurricanes on report to hit the state.
Its score may understate how a lot destruction the storm brings.
At the same time as Ian gathered power and neared Class 5 standing, specialists warned that solely listening to a hurricane’s class typically masks simply how damaging and life-threatening these storms could be — notably as local weather change makes hurricanes each rainier and extra intense.
Hurricane Ian is already proving to be a devastating storm. After knocking out energy to all of Cuba on Tuesday, Ian is forecast to dump as much as 24 inches of rain over elements of Florida and set off as much as 18-foot storm surges from Englewood to Bonita Seaside, based on the Nationwide Hurricane Middle.
And the sheer measurement of Ian is not conveyed by its class.
Within the days main as much as Ian’s landfall, many drew comparisons to Hurricane Charley, which struck Florida’s southwestern coast as a Class 4 storm in 2004. However whereas previous hurricanes can present useful context, Ian is bound to be a wildly totally different storm, stated Kimberly Wooden, an assistant professor of meteorology at Mississippi State College.
“We’re taking a look at the same class as Hurricane Charley, however the impacts will likely be very, very totally different,” they stated.
Lots of the most damaging and doubtlessly lethal impacts of a hurricane — together with storm surge, flooding and rainfall — usually are not accounted for in a storm’s class quantity. That is as a result of these classes consult with a storm’s score on what’s generally known as the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale, which ranks hurricanes from 1 to five based mostly on a storm’s most sustained wind pace.
The classes are used to estimate potential injury to property from hurricane winds, however the place it turns into problematic is that if individuals use the rankings to gauge different impacts on land.
“It has nothing to do with the dimensions of a storm, and it has little or no to do with how a lot rain is produced,” Wooden stated. “Individuals hyper-focus on the class when the class is a really small a part of the image of what a hurricane may do to a location.”
Hurricane Ian’s rainfall projections throughout Florida are a significant concern and match inside a broader development of storms changing into rainier in recent times on account of local weather change. A hotter environment can maintain extra moisture, which frequently means heavy rain and catastrophic flooding when these storms make landfall.
Hotter ocean waters and different modifications related to local weather change may additionally assist hurricanes like Ian intensify quickly as they close to shore, stated Karthik Balaguru, a local weather scientist with the Pacific Northwest Nationwide Laboratory.
As they strategy the coast, main hurricanes can generate life-threatening storm surge, which refers back to the irregular rise in water ranges due to the storm. Even lower-ranked hurricanes on the Saffir-Simpson scale can generate large storm surge.
In 2005, Hurricane Katrina reached Class 5 standing because it churned over the Gulf of Mexico however weakened to a Class 3 storm earlier than it made landfall first in Louisiana after which in Mississippi, the place it created a report 27.8-foot storm surge.
“In the event you have been considering it is solely a Class 3 hurricane, you’ll positively not consider a 28-foot storm surge,” stated Brian McNoldy, a senior analysis affiliate on the College of Miami Rosenstiel Faculty of Marine, Atmospheric and Earth Science.
Hurricane Ike slammed the Texas Gulf Coast in 2008 as a Class 2 storm, producing a 15-foot storm surge in Galveston Island — “method larger than individuals may suppose for a Class 2 hurricane,” McNoldy stated.
Each storm surge and rainfall depth are additionally affected by the pace of a hurricane — one more reason why the true dangers of a hurricane lengthen past its class quantity.
“Hurricane Ian is a really giant, slow-moving hurricane. Its winds are blowing over a big floor space that allows it to push extra saltwater, and in addition its winds are extended over time,” stated Hal Needham, an excessive climate and catastrophe scientist with the GeoTrek venture, a science media web site operated by the insurance coverage firm CNC Disaster & Nationwide Claims. “I feel we’ll see tens of 1000’s of properties taking in saltwater, and fast-flowing saltwater at that.”
Jennifer Collins, a professor of geosciences on the College of South Florida, wrote in an electronic mail that it’s “fairly clear” that many individuals don’t perceive what the Saffir-Simpson scale represents.
Collins stated her analysis exhibits that many individuals set thresholds for evacuation that hinge on the rankings, with some solely selecting to depart if the hurricane turns into a Class 3 or larger, leaving them open to flood threat from storm surge and intense rainfall not captured by the dimensions.
Collins is amongst many researchers who’ve outlined new programs to higher assist individuals determine their threat.
“There have been a number of different scales proposed over time and none have gained sufficient consideration or traction by the Nationwide Hurricane Middle,” Collins stated.
The brand new score system she developed alongside others in 2021 components storm surge, excessive rainfall and wind hazard into its evaluation.
“We’re engaged on additional analysis to tell us how the general public perceives our newly proposed scale,” Collins stated. “It is very important have such proof earlier than even proposing to the Nationwide Hurricane Middle that this needs to be thought-about as a alternative.”
Lakshmi Kantha, a professor emeritus on the College of Colorado who has studied hurricanes and the score system’s efficiency, stated the Saffir-Simpson scale doesn’t do sufficient to convey a storm’s hazard to the general public.
“It’s actually poor,” he stated, including that the dimensions ought to take note of a hurricane’s measurement.
Kantha stated the Nationwide Hurricane Middle acts conservatively and punctiliously with modifications, notably these with authorized implications. However he stated even small measures may enhance public understanding, comparable to making the dimensions steady.
“The least the hurricane heart can do is eliminate the discrete nature of the Saffir-Simpson scale,” Kantha stated. “The American public can perceive 3.5.”
Such a measure would not cap the dimensions at Class 5, he stated, which may assist talk hurricane depth in a world the place local weather change, and hotter ocean waters, are fueling extra intense storms.
With Ian proving to be one of the crucial highly effective hurricanes to hit the USA in many years, Wooden urged individuals throughout Florida to heed warnings from native officers and the Nationwide Hurricane Middle.
“It is a very severe scenario,” they stated. “I simply ache for everybody in Ian’s path.”
