Hurricanes - SFL

Dr. Michael D. McDonald, Coordinator, Global Health Response and Resilience Alliance - St. Petersburg College - Institute for Strategic Policy Solutions

Though the Tampa Bay area is ranked as the nation’s second-highest at-risk metropolitan area from climate change effects, it can thrive during the decades of rapid changes ahead by becoming a leader of the rapidly emerging Blue-Green economy. Tampa Bay has a set of extraordinary opportunities in the management of health, human security, and prosperity not only for its 3.5 million residents, but also as a model for how urban areas can face the challenges of sea level rise and broader climate change. The speaker will discuss how the region’s already well-established record for sound policy, adaptive markets, climate-smart infrastructure, compassion and social equity represents a foundation for transformation into a formidable force for resilience. He will explain how the diversion of trillions of dollars from petroleum-dependent industries into transformative climate resilience initiatives represents a new world of opportunities to forge a bright climate-resilient future for the region.

washingtonpost.com - by Brian McNoldy and Jason Samenow - September 9, 2018

 . . . “There is an increasing risk of two life-threatening impacts from Florence: Storm surge at the coast and freshwater flooding from a prolonged heavy rainfall event inland,” the National Hurricane Center wrote Sunday . . . We are particularly concerned about the rainfall potential in the Mid-Atlantic. Models have come into agreement that a northward turn before reaching the United States is unlikely and that a building high-pressure zone north of the storm will cause it to slow or stall once it reaches the coast or shortly thereafter.

Florence could sit over some part of the Mid-Atlantic for several days, similar to what Harvey did last year over eastern Texas. It has the potential to dump unthinkable amounts of rain over a large area in the Mid-Atlantic and perhaps into the Northeast. Rainfall could begin Friday or Saturday and continue into the following week. Where exactly the zone of heaviest rain sets up is a big uncertainty. It could reasonably occur anywhere between the mountains and the coast . . . 

Congressman Darren Soto and staff reach out to Puerto Rican evacuees in a lobby in a Florida Super 8 motel in Kissimmee, Florida, earlier this month. Photograph: Staff/Reuters

For the more than 300,000 people who fled after Hurricane Maria the Sunshine State proved to be no Disney World but they are poised to have an electoral impact in the midterms

theguardian.com - by Richard Luscombe - August 9, 2018

 . . . As of the end of June, more than 600 Puerto Rican families were still living in cramped, single-room accommodation in Florida hotels, two-thirds of them in central Florida’s Orange and Osceola counties and relying on the temporary shelter assistance program paid for by the federal emergency management agency (Fema).

And with the Orlando/Kissimmee/Sanford area third in the US for its dearth of affordable housing options, low-cost rentals are especially hard to come by, forcing even more to remain in $60-a-night hotel rooms in rundown areas, especially along the US 192 highway in Kissimmee . . . 

Hurricane Harvey over the Gulf of Mexico in August 2017. The storm stalled over Texas and dropped nearly 50 inches of rain in some places.  Credit NOAA/NASA GOES Project

CLICK HERE - STUDY - A global slowdown of tropical-cyclone translation speed

A new study shows that storms are staying in one place longer, much like Hurricane Harvey did last year.

nytimes.com - by Kendra Pierre-Louis - June 6, 2018

 . . . A study published Wednesday in the journal Nature focuses on what is known as translation speed, which measures how quickly a storm is moving over an area, say, from Miami to the Florida Panhandle. Between 1949 and 2016, tropical cyclone translation speeds declined 10 percent worldwide, the study says. The storms, in effect, are sticking around places for a longer period of time.

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