Will Hurricanes Migrate North With Climate Change?

A woman photographs giant coastal waves in southern England
created by ex-hurricane Ophelia. Photo by Matt Cardy/
Getty Images

As expected, ex-hurricane Ophelia trashed Ireland with strong, damaging winds Monday, killing at least three people, unroofing buildings, tossing down countless trees and leaving more than 360,000 people with electricity.

Was Ophelia a rare one-off, just one of those storms that were still almost hurricanes by the time it reached Europe?  After all, this has happened before, with Debbie in 1961 being the most cited example.

However, there are indications that with global warming, hurricanes are drifting further and further north. These storms thrive on warm water. If warm water is further north, the logic goes, hurricanes would go further north, too.

This has implications for Europe, of course. If a storm retains hurricane status further north, then the storm's inevitable transition to non-tropical storm status would come further north. But that poleward shift means these storms would be stronger than they would be had they lost their tropical characteristics further south.

Is Europe due for a lot more Ophelias? The jury is out, but the signs are there. A 2014 University of Wisconsin study noted there has been a "pronounced poleward migration in the average latitude at which tropical cyclones have achieved their lifetime maximum intensity over the past 30 years."

If global warming brings tropical storms and hurricanes further north, that has implications for us New Englanders.

Of course, we are already sometimes hit by hurricanes and tropical storms - even major ones. The Great Hurricane of 1938 was Category 3 when it reached Long Island and New England, killing more than 600 people.

Even weaker tropical storms can wreak havoc. Just ask any Vermonter who had to deal with the flooding from Tropical Storm Irene in 2011.

Aftermath of the Great New England hurricane of 1938
in Connecticut. Will global warming drive more such
storms northward? More research is needed.

However, tropical storms and hurricanes, even ones that reach New England and southeastern Canada, usually weaken as they approach because the waters off the Northeast coast are cool. Remember, hurricanes need very warm water.

If ocean waters off the coasts of New England and Canada warm, perhaps this weakening trend in most northward moving tropical storms and hurricanes could lessen, creating more powerful storms for us.

Some studies suggest New England could be more prone to tropical storms and hurricanes in a warmer future, but more research is definitely needed to confirm this.

That future is not cast in stone. More research is needed. But it is something to consider.

Ophelia, Wildfires Trash Europe, And A Word About Vermont Frost Tonight

A stadium damaged by Ophelia
today in Ireland.

I know frost during October in Vermont is not exactly unusual or a disaster, especially compared to the weather extremes and dangers in Europe most of this post will be about.

We're talking what was Hurricane Ophelia, now a powerful storm trashing Ireland. And we're talking scary, deadly wildfires in Portugal and Spain.

VERMONT FROST 

But, I'm based in Vermont, so I'll get our frost out of the way first: Although much of Vermont has already had frost this autumn, the Champlain Valley and a few other places have not. Which is pretty late in the month to go frost-free.

That will change tonight. A freeze warning is in effect for the Champlain Valley tonight, which means most of us will go below freezing. Anything that's still growing outside that you want to keep should either come inside, or you should try covering them up.

Even covering them might not totally be enough in many areas, especially away from the lake, since it will be so cold.

There are no frost warnings away from Lake Champlain because the growing season is considered done there. But some garden plants survived earlier cold weather elsewhere in Vermont, where temperatures will be in the 20s tonight.

Warmer weather returns for the rest of the week, but it won't be quite as toasty as the near-record mid and upper 70s we saw on Sunday.

OPHELIA

As I write this Monday morning, Ireland was being trashed by what was Hurricane Ophelia. It has finally lost its tropical characteristics but not its power. Ophelia had set a record over the weekend as the most north and east in the Atlantic a major hurricane has reached.

The peak of the storm in Ireland arrived at around mid-morning local time. There's already a report of a woman killed by a falling tree. About 120,000 people were without power and officials warned of coastal waves the height of a double decker bus.

Social media posts are showing roofs blowing off buildings, large waves crashing into shorelines and many, many trees down.

A 118 mph gust has already been reported at one coastal Irish location.

Ophelia was forecast to slam Northern Ireland, Scotland and parts of northern England this afternoon local time.

Ex-hurricanes that were full-fledged hurricanes just prior to hitting the British Isles are rare. The last time this happened was in 1961, when Hurricane Debbie, which had just transitioned from hurricane to powerful mid-latitude storm, killed 11 people in Ireland.

In another odd twist, Ophelia brought Saharan dust all the way north to Great Britain, so places where the sun was still out yesterday and this morning had an eerie red disc for a sun as all the dust in the air  caused this effect.

WILDFIRES IN PORTUGAL

Well east of Ophelia, southerly winds, partly associated with the storm, brought hot, dry conditions to Portugal and Spain, and wildfires on par with the recent ones in California resulted.

At least 30 people have died in the fires in Portugal and Spain, and the death toll is expected to rise. Record heat in the mid 80s to mid 90s contributed to the fires, as did strong winds on the outer fringes of Ophelia. The region also experienced an extremely hot, dry summer.

Sadly, it appears that most of the fires over the past couple of days were deliberately set, so some arsonists killed all these people and burned hundreds of homes and businesses.

Slightly cooler, somewhat wetter conditions are forecast over the next few days, which should help firefighting efforts.

This is the second major wildfire calamity in Portugal this year. June wildfires in that nation killed 64 people.

Weird Hurricane Ophelia, And No End To California Fire Catastrophe

The National Hurricane Center has a strange forecast
track for Hurricane Ophelia. It could threaten Ireland. 

As we've watched the fires rage in California (I'll have an update further down in this post and the news is terrible) we also have another hurricane out in the Atlantic Ocean.

OPHELIA

Tropical Storm Ophelia strengthened into a hurricane yesterday and it's in a weird place. Ophelia is in the eastern Atlantic Ocean, well off the coast of Morocco, which is awfully far north and east for an Atlantic hurricane.

It's heading northeast, and oddly, could hit Ireland of all places. Ophelia will be transitioning from a tropical system to a plain old mid-latitude storm by the time it nears Ireland, but that doesn't make much of a difference as to what will happen.

Ophelia, or ex-Ophelia will be a very powerful storm once it blows by Ireland Monday or Tuesday, so we they are bracing for possible wind damage as gusts could easily exceed 80 mph on the Emerald Isle.

Although storms that are just completing transitions from hurricanes are rare in Great Britain, they have happened. According to the Category 6 weather blog, something like this happened in Ireland back in 1961, when Hurricane Debbie caused one of the most damaging wind storms in Irish history. Some sections of the country lost 25 percent of their trees with Debbie.

Ophelia has also tied another record for the Atlantic Basin. It's the 10th consecutive tropical storm that strengthened into a hurricane. That ties the record for the most consecutive hurricanes set in 1878, 1886 and 1893.

And remember, back in the 1800s, we didn't have satellites, so we might have missed a weaker tropical storm in between all the hurricanes that happened in those years.

So yeah, you can definitely say the 2017 hurricane season in the Atlantic has been pretty extreme. On the bright side, there's no immediate signs of any other new tropical storms or hurricanes forming in the Atlantic in the next seveal days.

CALIFORNIA FIRES

The situation with the wildfires in California just keeps getting worse and worse and the weather shows no signs of giving the state a break, at least through Saturday.

As expected, winds picked up and the humidity dropped in northern California yesterday and last night, and the fires resumed their rapid spread.

Wildfire destruction in Santa Rosa, California. Photo by Beth
Schlanker/Santa Rosa Press Democrat

At last check, the death toll had risen to 23, more people were missing and 3,500 homes have been destroyed. More homes are going to go.

Some of the fires are still completely out of control and all authorities can do at this point is try to evacuate people in the paths of the fires.

It's still breezy today, and after a slight lull in the winds tonight, it's going to get nearly as windy and dry Friday and Saturday as it was Sunday night, when the worst of the fires started.

Trouble is going to spread to the Los Angeles area, too, as hot, dry, strong Santa Ana winds are forecast to fan existing and new fires Friday and Saturday.

Back up in the San Francisco Bay Area, smoke from the fires has created an air quality crisis. Pollution levels set records in San Francisco and flights were delayed Wednesday for up to three hours due to the poor visibility in the smoke.