Forecasters are warning of dangerous rip currents along the East Coast this week as Hurricane Erin moves through the Atlantic. While the storm won’t make landfall, Virginia Tech experts caution it still poses significant risks and highlights a troubling trend in how hurricanes are evolving.
The storm intensified at record speed, strengthening from a Category 1 storm to a Category 5 in just one day. That makes it one of the fastest-strengthening hurricanes ever recorded in the Atlantic.
According to Stephanie Zick, an associate professor of meteorology, rapid intensification like this tends to happen when the storm is in a favorable environment.
“We’re entering the most active part of hurricane season,” she said. “Most storms that reach major hurricane strength go through at least one period of rapid intensification, which is defined as an increase of peak wind of 30 knots (34.5 mph) in 24 hours.”
Zick noted that while rapid intensification is fairly common in hurricanes, we are seeing higher rates than in the past.
“As sea surface temperatures increase, hurricanes are expected to have more energy to support higher intensification rates,” she explained.
Zick emphasized that storm intensity alone does not tell the full story, it’s just one factor.
“The maximum sustained winds are important and can cause great devastation, but wind damage is usually highly localized in an area near the center of the storm. Hurricane size is arguably more important because larger storms can bring higher storm surges and more rainfall.”
According to coastal hazards expert Robert Weiss, storms like Hurricane Erin demonstrate how even offshore systems can have wide-ranging consequences.
“While it won’t make landfall, the storm’s impact on the East Coast could be significant,” Weiss explained. “High waves and rip currents could create dangerous conditions for tourists along the coast. Beyond that, we could see disrupted shipping routes between the U.S. and Europe due to high seas as well as flight delays and rerouting across the Atlantic.”
Looking to the future, it’s imperative to be informed by past data of these storms to make critical decisions, Weiss said.
“We need to think about what we need to do, how we need to coordinate, and how we need to collaborate to build resilience and resistance for families, communities, and regions to avoid the disruptions caused by hurricanes like Erin.”
About Zick
Stephanie Zick is an associate professor of meteorology in the College of Natural Resources and Environment. Her areas of focus include tropical meteorology, tropical cyclones (hurricanes), precipitation, numerical weather prediction, and model forecast verification. Her research uses spatial methods to better understand tropical cyclone dynamics and structure with a particular focus on hurricane landfall. More specifically, she harnesses the intimate link between the anatomy of a hurricane and its physiology, or the physical mechanisms that fuel the storm.
About Weiss
Robert Weiss is a professor of natural hazards in the College of Science. Weiss develops computer models and uses analytics to examine the impact of coastal hazards in the past, present, and future. For the geologic past, his work attempts to translate the geologic record into insights that improve the understanding of coastal hazards today. For predicting future hazard impacts, he uses high-performance computing to better characterize the effect of climate change impacts and their uncertainty on how coastal hazards, such as tsunamis and hurricanes, will affect future coastal areas.
