The rising temperatures each year have received attention but not enough. Now a view into our environmental future if we don’t start working to slow climate change with the presence of Hurricane Milton is here. Florida is no stranger to hurricanes, but Hurricane Milton is different.
On Friday October fourth, Milton was identified as a tropical depression in the Gulf of Mexico, and it rapidly evolved into a tropical storm.Within about twenty-two to twenty-four hours, Milton aggressively transformed into a category one (cat. one) hurricane into a cat. five with wind speeds of one hundred sixty miles per hour. But what has meteorologists so shocked is that Milton was able to reach one-hundred-eighty miles an hour, exceeding the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Wind scale. To surpass the scale means that the hurricane has reached winds higher than one-hundred-fifty-seven miles per hour while approaching land. Only nine other Atlantic hurricanes were able to reach a wind threshold or higher than the Saffir-Simpson Wind scale measures.
On Wednesday October ninth Milton touched down as an extremely dangerous, violent category three hurricane, near Siesta Key. A coast guard retells the conditions a man was stuck in during the hurricane, “The agency estimated the man had survived winds of 75 to 90 mph (121 to 145 kph) and waves up to 25 feet (7.6 meters) high during his night on the water.” In addition to the violent winds and extreme flooding, “… at least nine tornadoes accompanied the storm,” which ripped across Florida.
The hurricane has created a path of absolute destruction, leaving over three million people without power and at least seventeen dead. Homes have been washed away, flooded, and destroyed, leaving Florida residents’ lives in tatters.
Florida has been hit with three hurricanes this year, Milton being the most extreme. The warmer temperatures caused by climate change have increased the intensity of the hurricanes in the United States and slowed the speed at which it travels. Research done by scientists shows that “Hurricane impacts will continue to get worse, and … their severity will only spike from here. Higher sea surface temperatures allow for tropical storm wind speeds to increase, and permit them to make more damage if they make landfall.” The importance of weaker storms is that it means fewer deaths and the increased safety of people’s homes and communities.
This natural disaster has some of the most unnatural conditions Florida has ever seen due to the increasing global temperatures. The issue of climate change and how unaddressed it is where my frustration blooms. We’ve known for years how unsustainable our lifestyles are, yet we continue to find quick fixes instead of finding actual remedies to the damage we’ve done. The gap between what we can do for nature and what we are doing is becoming larger each day. These natural disasters are a sign we need change, and that it needs to happen now.
