Climate Change Supercharging Helene: Will Rapidly Intensify, Make Landfall in 48 Hours.

WASHINGTON (September 24, 2024)—Tropical Storm Helene formed in the Atlantic Ocean and is expected to rapidly intensify. The National Hurricane Center (NHC) predicts Helene will make landfall in Florida as a major hurricane in just two days. Helene’s forecast from the NHC earlier today is unprecedented in that it called for a record rate of rapid intensification for a storm starting from 35 mph compared to all previous forecasts from the Center between 2000 and 2023.

“Helene’s rapid intensification, fueled by anomalously warm waters in the Gulf of Mexico, bears the undeniable fingerprints of climate change,” said Dr. Astrid Caldas, a senior climate scientist for community resilience at the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS). “Estimates from Climate Central suggest that the unusually high surface temperatures fueling Helene, about 2 degrees Celsius above normal, were made hundreds of times more likely because of climate change. While historically unprecedented, climate change is turning the summer months into a Danger Season, which will make unnatural disasters like rapidly intensifying Helene more common if policymakers fail to address the root cause of global heating: fossil fuel emissions.”

Forecasters are projecting that on Thursday evening the storm will strike the Florida panhandle—an area that experienced widespread damage during Hurricane Idalia last year.

Complicating matters, the U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) has reported that the Disaster Relief Fund (DRF) is precariously low on funds to address the needs of communities and small businesses reeling from extreme weather and climate-fueled disasters. FEMA confirmed it has been operating on an “Immediate Needs Funding” basis since August 7, which means the agency has been prioritizing immediate lifesaving and life-sustaining response and recovery efforts while halting many categories of recovery funding for past disasters, as well as pausing unobligated grants, until Congress allocates more funding to the DRF.

“Without supplemental investments in the Disaster Relief Fund by Congress, FEMA will likely be stretched thin into the new fiscal year and challenged to meet its obligations to the communities still recovering from past hurricanes, wildfires and other climate impacts,” said Shana Udvardy, a senior climate resilience policy analyst at UCS. “Basing disaster funding primarily on past averages is a recipe for failure. This storm is a blaring siren signaling that our policies need to catch up to our climate reality. It’s paramount that Congress provides a permanent fix to the fund so FEMA can fulfill its mission unimpeded: getting communities back on their feet after dangerous and deadly climate change-fueled disasters.”

The Union of Concerned Scientists also has experts available to speak about the following hurricane related topics:

• How they exacerbate existing racial and socioeconomic inequities, and compound public health disparities.
• The risks Helene may pose to electric grid infrastructure in its path.
• The role fossil fuel companies have played in exacerbating climate change events.
• How investments to help communities prepare before disasters strike can help limit future economic damages and prevent loss of life.
• The disastrous and far-reaching impact tidal flooding will have on homes and vital infrastructure in coastal communities, as well as the insurance market.
• Solutions for reining in heat-trapping emissions and supporting communities as they seek to increase their resilience to future storms.

Additional Resources and Analyses:

• A UCS online map, which tracks the places at risk of extreme heat, wildfires, storms, and flooding during the 2024 Danger Season.
• UCS blogposts from this and previous Danger Seasons.
• A UCS report “A Toxic Relationship: Extreme Coastal Flooding and Superfund Sites.”
• A UCS report “Lights Out? Storm Surge, Blackouts, and How Clean Energy Can Help.”
• A UCS report “Looming Deadlines for Coastal Resilience: Rising Seas, Disruptive Tides, and Risks to Coastal Infrastructure.”
• A UCS report “Underwater: Rising Seas, Chronic Floods, and the Implications for US Coastal Real Estate.”
• A peer-reviewed UCS study “When Rising Seas Hit Home: Hard Choices for Hundreds of US Coastal Communities.”
• Peer-reviewed research by UCS that shows how much global sea surface temperatures, sea level rise, and ocean acidification can be traced to emissions from the products of ExxonMobil and other major fossil fuel companies.