This week alone, two tropical cyclones leaped to Category 5 intensity in two days — Hurricane Jova in the northeastern Pacific on Wednesday, closely followed by Hurricane Lee in the Atlantic on Thursday. The pair of storms intensified with astonishing haste, their peak winds increasing 90 mph and 85 mph, respectively, in 24 hours.
Meteorologists monitor seven tropical oceans basins around the world for storm development. In addition to the Atlantic and eastern Pacific, Category 5 storms formed in the other five basins earlier this year.
Brian McNoldy, a tropical weather expert at the University of Miami, confirmed that 2023 marked the first instance of Category 5 storms in all seven and linked it to the warm waters.
“I think it’s reasonable to hypothesize that the abnormally warm ocean temperatures around the world made this more likely to happen,” McNoldy said in an email. “Gives everything a boost.”
Waters are warmer-than-normal almost everywhere, helping storms intensify quickly even in areas in which storm activity is often reduced during El Niño because of hostile high-altitude winds.
“In an El Niño year, the strong storms in the Pacific are not surprising, but the Atlantic would be the basin that’s highly unlikely to pull its weight and produce a 5,” said Alex DesRosiers, a tropical weather researcher at Colorado State University. “The record warm [sea surface temperatures] we are seeing in regions of the tropical and subtropical Atlantic are key in allowing for the active hurricane season we’ve had so far despite the usually prohibitive El Niño.”
Category 5 storms have maximum sustained winds of at least 157 mph and are considered the most dangerous on Earth. When they strike land, “catastrophic damage will occur,” the National Hurricane Center writes. Homes are severely damaged, trees are uprooted, and areas can be left inhabitable for “weeks or months.”
Depending on the part of the world in which they form, these hurricane-strength storms have different names but produce the same effects. In the Southern Hemisphere, they are mostly called cyclones, while they are referred to as typhoons in the western Pacific Ocean.
The first of 2023’s Category 5 storms came in February. Here’s a snapshot of the seven Category 5 storms so far this year.
February: Tropical Cyclone Freddy, 165 mph winds in the southwest Indian Ocean
Freddy was an extremely long-duration storm, with a total life cycle of about five weeks, which made it the longest-lived tropical cyclone on record. Freddy rapidly intensified — gaining at least 35 mph in wind speed over the course of a day — multiple times, including to a peak of 165 mph on Feb. 19.
March: Tropical Cyclone Kevin, 160 mph winds in the southwest Pacific Ocean
Kevin also underwent rapid intensification between March 1 and 3, climbing from a Category 1 to a Category 4. It reached Category 5 status largely over open water, but Vanuatu northeast of Australia suffered damaging winds and flooding.
April: Tropical Cyclone Ilsa, 160 mph winds in the Australian basin (or southeast Indian Ocean)
Passing over waters in the mid- and upper 80s, Ilsa rapidly intensified as it closed in on the northwestern coast of Australia in mid-April. Record-breaking wind speeds for the region were recorded at Bedout Island off the Australian mainland, and settlements near landfall sustained major damage.
May — Tropical Cyclone Mocha, 175 mph winds in the North Indian Ocean
Yet another storm took advantage of unusually warm waters and rapidly intensified near shore. Mocha ended up as one of the worst North Indian Ocean tropical cyclones on record after it crashed into Myanmar and Bangladesh, killing hundreds.
May: Super Typhoon Mawar, 185 mph winds in the northwest Pacific Ocean
Mawar became the strongest storm of the year, the strongest on record in May and one of the strongest observed at any time as its pressure bottomed out below 900 millibars. The lower the pressure, the stronger the storm. The storm underwent two episodes of rapid intensification.
September: Hurricane Jova, 160 mph winds in the northeast Pacific Ocean
Between Tuesday and Wednesday this week, Jova catapulted from a strong tropical storm to a 160 mph Category 5. Fortunately, it has remained over water and is weakening.
September: Hurricane Lee, 165 mph winds in the Atlantic
Lee also exploded from a forgettable looking storm to a beastly Category 5 in about a day. Hurricane Hunter aircraft observed the storm near its peak Thursday night, capturing frequent lightning in its core. The powerful storm is forecast to plow across the western Atlantic and could affect eastern New England and the Canadian Maritimes in about eight to 10 days.
Lee became the eighth Category 5 hurricane to form in the Atlantic in the last eight years. Between 1970 and 2000, only six Atlantic storms reached Category 5, according to John Morales, a broadcast meteorologist in Miami. “Category 5 hurricanes used to be rare,” he tweeted. “Used to be.”
Hurricane Lee is charting a new course in weather and could signal more monster storms
This satellite image provided by the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration shows Hurricane Lee, right, in the Atlantic Ocean on Friday, Sept. 8, 2023, at 4:50 p.m. EDT. Lee is rewriting old rules of meteorology, leaving experts astonished at how rapidly it grew into a goliath Category 5 hurricane.
Pick up trucks and debris lie strewn in a canal in Horseshoe Beach, Fla., after the passage of Hurricane Idalia, Wednesday, Aug. 30, 2023. Category 5 status — when sustained winds are at least 157 mph or 253 kph — is quite rare. Only about 4.5% of named storms in the Atlantic Ocean have grown to a category 5 in the past decade, said Brian McNoldy, a scientist and hurricane researcher at the University of Miami.
Downed trees are seen from the air near Tyndall Air Force Base in the aftermath of Hurricane Michael near Mexico Beach, Fla. Category 5 status — when sustained winds are at least 157 mph or 253 kph — is quite rare. Only about 4.5% of named storms in the Atlantic Ocean have grown to a category 5 in the past decade, said Brian McNoldy, a scientist and hurricane researcher at the University of Miami.
Rescue personnel perform a search in the aftermath of Hurricane Michael in Mexico Beach, Fla., Thursday, Oct. 11, 2018. Category 5 status — when sustained winds are at least 157 mph or 253 kph — is quite rare. Only about 4.5% of named storms in the Atlantic Ocean have grown to a category 5 in the past decade, said Brian McNoldy, a scientist and hurricane researcher at the University of Miami.
BY JEFF MARTIN
September 9, 202
ATLANTA (AP) — Hurricane Lee is rewriting old rules of meteorology, leaving experts astonished at how rapidly it grew into a goliath Category 5 hurricane.
Lee — which just as quickly dropped to a still-dangerous Category 3 and held that strength Saturday — could still be a harbinger as ocean temperatures climb, spawning fast-growing major hurricanes that could threaten communities farther north and inland, experts say.
“Hurricanes are getting stronger at higher latitudes,” said Marshall Shepherd, director of the University of Georgia’s atmospheric sciences program and a past president of the American Meteorological Society. “If that trend continues, that brings into play places like Washington, D.C., New York and Boston.”
HYPERINTENSIFICATION
As the oceans warm, they act as jet fuel for hurricanes.
“That extra heat comes back to manifest itself at some point, and one of the ways it does is through stronger hurricanes,” Shepherd said.
MORE ON HURRICANE LEE
Hurricane Lee unleashes heavy swell on northern Caribbean as it charges through open waters
Hurricane Lee barrels through open Atlantic waters after becoming season’s first Category 5 storm
Hurricane Lee unleashes heavy swell on northern Caribbean as it charges through open waters
During the overnight hours Thursday, Lee shattered the standard for what meteorologists call rapid intensification — when a hurricane’s sustained winds increase by 35 mph (56 kph) in 24 hours.
“This one increased by 80 mph (129 kph),” Shepherd said. “I can’t emphasize this enough. We used to have this metric of 35 mph, and here’s a storm that did twice that amount, and we’re seeing that happen more frequently,” said Shepherd, who describes what happened with Lee as hyperintensification.
With super-warm ocean temperatures and low wind shear, “all the stars were aligned for it to intensify rapidly,” said Kerry Emanuel, professor emeritus of atmospheric science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
INLAND THREATS
Category 5 status, when sustained winds are at least 157 mph (253 kph), is quite rare. Only about 4.5% of named storms in the Atlantic Ocean have grown to a Category 5 in the past decade, said Brian McNoldy, a scientist and hurricane researcher at the University of Miami.
More intense major hurricanes also are threatening communities farther inland, because the monster storms can grow so powerful that they remain dangerous hurricanes for longer distances over land.
“I think that’s a story that’s kind of undertold,” Shepherd said. “As these storms are strong coming to landfall, in some cases they’re moving fast enough that they’re still hurricanes well inland.”
Hurricane Idalia was the latest example. It came ashore in the Florida Panhandle last month and remained a hurricane as it entered south Georgia, where it slammed into the city of Valdosta more than 70 miles (116 kilometers) from where it made landfall. At least 80 homes in the Valdosta area were destroyed and hundreds of others damaged.
In 2018, Hurricane Michael carved a similar path of inland destruction, tearing up cotton crops and pecan trees and leaving widespread damage across south Georgia.
MONSTER WAVES
Although it’s too early to know how close Lee might come to the U.S. East Coast, New Englanders are keeping a wary eye on the storm. As it creeps closer, it could bring high seas and rip currents up and down the Eastern Seaboard.
“What we are going to see from Lee — and we’re very confident — is it’s going to be a major wave producer,” Mike Brennan, director of the National Hurricane Center, said in a Friday briefing.
On Saturday, large swells battered the northeast Caribbean as Lee churned through open waters hundreds of miles off the northern Leeward Islands.
“This morning, the highest significant wave height we were analyzing in Lee was between 45 and 50 feet, and the highest waves could even be double that,” Brennan said, speaking of swells far out at sea. “So we could be looking at 80, 90-foot waves associated with Lee.”
By Karen Graham
Published September 9, 2023
The eye of Hurricane Lee, a monster of a storm. Hurricane Lee represents one of the most powerful storms possible. Research has tied the climate crisis to more extreme and destructive Atlantic storms. Source - U.S. Dept. of Defense/Air Force Reserve Hurricane Hunters
During the overnight hours on Thursday, Lee shattered the standard for what meteorologists call rapid intensification.
As of Saturday morning, Hurricane Lee is a Category 3 storm on the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale. Fluctuations in intensity are likely over the
next few days, however, Lee is expected to remain a powerful hurricane through early next week.
But Even as a Category 3 hurricane, Lee has left the experts astounded at its speed of intensification, literally rewriting all the rules meteorologists have used in defining the strength and overall power of hurricanes.
Lee is giving us a preview of things to come as our oceans continue to heat up, spawning fast-growing major hurricanes that could threaten communities farther north and farther inland, experts say, according to the Associated Press.
“Hurricanes are getting stronger at higher latitudes,” said Marshall Shepherd, director of the University of Georgia’s Atmospheric Sciences Program and a past president of the American Meteorological Society. “If that trend continues, that brings into play places like Washington, D.C., New York and Boston.”
As the oceans warm, they act as jet fuel for hurricanes. “That extra heat comes back to manifest itself at some point, and one of the ways it does is through stronger hurricanes,” Shepherd said.
Meteorologists have a standard for defining rapid intensification with hurricanes – defined as when a hurricane’s sustained winds increase by 35 mph (56 kph) in 24 hours.
“This one increased by 80 mph (129 kph),” Shepherd said. “I can’t emphasize this enough — we used to have this metric of 35 mph, and here’s a storm that did twice that amount and we’re seeing that happen more frequently,” said Shepherd, who describes what happened with Lee as “hyper-intensification.”
Lee was 385 miles (620 kilometers) east-northeast of the northern Leeward Islands as of 5 a.m. EDT Saturday, whipping up maximum sustained winds of 115 mph (185 KPH), according to the National Hurricane Center.
And because this hurricane isn’t exactly playing by the rules, it is expected to re-strengthen over the weekend and remain strong into the middle of next week.
Category 5 status is becoming more common
Only about 4.5 percent of named storms in the Atlantic Ocean have grown to a Category 5 in the past decade, said Brian McNoldy, a scientist and hurricane researcher at the University of Miami.
So Lee is in what used to be considered rare company. Reaching Category 5 strength has become more common over the last decade, CNN News is reporting. Lee is the 8th Category 5 since 2016, meaning 20 percent of these exceptionally powerful hurricanes on record in NOAA’s hurricane database have come in the last seven years.
The Atlantic is not the only ocean to have spawned a monster storm in 2023. All seven ocean basins where tropical cyclones can form have had a storm reach Category 5 strength so far this year, including Hurricane Jova, which reached Category 5 status in the eastern Pacific earlier this week.
Inside the eye of Hurricane Lee
A scary video has been posted by the U.S. Air Force Reserve’s 53rd Weather Reconnaissance Squadron in Biloxi, Mississippi, known as the “Hurricane Hunters,” reports Space.com. It was published by the U.S. Department of Defense.
The rare look directly into the eye of a hurricane was made possible by the Hurricane Hunters. According to an Air Force fact sheet, the 53rd Weather Reconnaissance Squadron is the “only operational unit in the world flying weather reconnaissance on a routine basis.”
The squadron flies a specialized WC-130J Hercules aircraft. It’s equipped with specialized meteorological sensors including dropsondes, instruments that are dropped directly through storms in order to create a top-to-bottom profile of wind, temperature, and pressure. The aircraft can stay in the air for nearly 18 hours, allowing crews to collect weather data over extended periods.
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