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Hurricane Harvey expanded from a tropical storm to a category 4 hurricane in just 48 hours, and is now stalled over eastern Texas and western Louisiana and dropping rainfall in the area at a rate never before witnessed. But why is this? Like Hurricane Katrina and Superstorm Sandy, Harvey expanded to hurricane force with unexpected speed. The reason is that sea-surface waters in the Gulf of Mexico were between 2.7 and 7.2 degrees Fahrenheit above average. Water temperatures in the Gulf have been rising for the past thirty years, with the highest temperatures being recorded in 2011. They then dropped until 2013, and have since been rising again. read more

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The governors of Florida and South Carolina have warned all residents in areas that may be affected by Hurricane Matthew  to evacuate or make appropriate preparations. The storm has crossed Haiti, but with communications down over most of the island, damage and casualties are unknown.

Life-threatening surf and rip-currents are now a danger over a wide area from Puerto Rico to Venezuela and north into the Bahamas. In their 8 a.m. Tuesday advisory, National Hurricane Center forecasters said the storm’s sustained winds are 145 mph. Matthew is now tracking slightly westward of its original course and should begin to affect Florida on Thursday, while passing directly over the Bahamas.
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Storms across the southern and central US have left at least 35 people dead and devastated many communities. While flooding and severe thunderstorms continued in the southeast on Sunday, north Texas and Oklahoma began to experience dramatic temperature drops and heavy snowfall. On November 18, our Climatewatch section predicted "because of warm, moist air from the 2015 el Nino extending up into the central United States, there will be an unusual amount of thunderstorm activity in that area into the winter. Severe storms with copious snowfall could become commonplace." Climatewatch, which has been running since 2000, has rarely failed to accurately predict future weather.read more

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Hurricane Patricia, which struck southern Mexico over the weekend made landfall so quickly that it declined within hours into a tropical storm, then broke up into disorganized cells. Patricia was the most powerful hurricane ever recorded. However, the speed with which it came ashore in a relatively arid area meant that its vertical circulation was impeded, and what could have been a great disaster became an event involving flooding and minor wind damage.

Farther north in Texas, an extension of the storm complex dumped as much as 20 inches of rain east of Dallas, but for the most part the state experienced a rainfall 4 to 6 inches, which is resulting in a significant increase in water levels in reservoirs and aquifers.
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