Hurricane Idalia leaves at least two dead in Florida and enters Georgia with ...

hellojoy12

Update: Idalia is now a Category 1 hurricane and is now in Georgia, where evacuation orders are also in place. So far two people have been confirmed dead in Florida due to the hurricane.

The city of  Perry ,  Florida , received strong winds and rain when  Idalia  made landfall as a Category 3. It had reached Category 4 but was later downgraded

Early Tuesday morning, Tropical Storm Idalia strengthened into Hur Phone Number List ricane Idalia , charting a course toward the west coast and the Florida panhandle. Its maximum winds reached more than 200 km/h. It fed on exceptionally warm ocean waters before making landfall early Wednesday.

The three dangers of Hurricane Idalia for Florida
It will hit Florida, including the densely populated Tampa Bay, with a triple combination of dangers: strong winds, torrential rains and a huge storm surge, which could reach 4.5 meters. The National Hurricane Center expects this "life-threatening" storm surge to cause "catastrophic impacts . "

Although most people understand that a hurricane brings wind and rain, it is the storm surge element that causes extreme danger to coastal communities. The entire Florida Gulf Coast (Peninsula and Mango) is one of the most vulnerable areas to storm surges in the United States and even the world ," says Rick Knabb, Weather Channel hurricane expert and former director of the National Hurricane Center. "The only way to make sure you survive a storm surge, especially a catastrophic storm surge, which is what we expect in Florida's Big Bend [from where millions were evacuated] and in Apalachee Bay tomorrow morning , is not being there when it happens."

How Hurricane Idalia grows
Any hurricane feeds on hot water . Warm, moist air rises from the ocean surface, sending energy into the atmosphere. That moisture condenses in clouds and storms and releases its latent heat, warming the core of the storm. This, in turn, reduces atmospheric pressure, which increases winds and the amount of water the system can evaporate from the ocean.



Idalia has been feeding off rising ocean temperatures . "It's a machine that takes more and more advantage of the amount of heat and moisture it extracts from the ocean," explains Knabb, "Temperatures have risen to the high 80s (26°C) and close to 90 (32°C) degrees Fahrenheit in many parts of the eastern Gulf of Mexico. The Gulf is always warm enough to support hurricanes, but this year it is much warmer than average, reaching record levels in quite a few places."

Overall, climate change is dramatically warming the world's oceans, providing fuel for more powerful hurricanes. But atmospheric dynamics also come into play. Trade winds have been slow lately in the tropical Atlantic and Caribbean. Those winds typically stir up deeper, colder waters. But with less upwelling, the waters of the Caribbean and Florida have been simmering hot. "All of that has been festering for weeks and weeks," says Knabb, "and now those waters are being used by this hurricane as fuel.