How are hurricanes, warming waters and harmful swimming circumstances in New England related?

Strong riptides linked to tropical storm techniques, together with Hurricane Erin, final month made swimming circumstances extra harmful, retaining Seacoast lifeguards busy this summer time.

With two months left of the hurricane season, the state’s shoreline should must cope with the consequences of tropical storms and hurricanes supercharged by local weather change.

As artifical local weather change warms the ambiance, New Hampshire is getting warmer and wetter. The Gulf of Maine is warming faster than the ocean general.

Mary Stampone, the state’s climatologist, mentioned these circumstances can supercharge storms. Typically, hurricanes that made their method as much as New England began to weaken as they moved into the colder waters of the North Atlantic.

“But with our oceans warming, those storms are not weakening at the same rate that they used to,” Stampone mentioned. “So with the warmer waters means that we can then get tropical systems that are still in the hurricane or tropical storm phase.”

This is as a result of a couple of key elements energy hurricanes. Warmer ocean waters imply extra intense storms and hotter atmospheres can maintain extra moisture which may result in extra precipitation. The finish end result tends to be storms which can be extra intense, with stronger winds, extra rain and extra coastal flooding. As sea ranges rise, scientists predict storm surge will worsen.

Even if a storm doesn’t make landfall in New England, its results can nonetheless be felt, like Hurricane Erin. Stampone mentioned offshore techniques can nonetheless flip up the depth of waves and currents close to shore.

Other elements like El Niño affect the power of a given hurricane season. The final El Niño went from mid-2023 to June 2024.

Stampone says hurricanes shouldn’t be the one storms that seize our consideration.

She mentioned Nor’Easters, that are distinguished from hurricanes as a result of they kind over colder water, may cause essentially the most coastal injury right here. They can occur within the winter and sometimes come within the type of blizzards.

“It’s small but a very important coastline that we have,” she mentioned.

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