| Above: PBS NOVA gives its take on the hurricanes of 2017 in a show at 9 pm EDT Wednesday, June 27. |
At 9 pm EDT Wednesday, June 27, the acclaimed PBS NOVA series will air a 1-hour show, Rise of the Superstorms, focusing on the destruction wrought by the great hurricanes of 2017: Harvey, Irma, and Maria. I’m one of the show’s featured experts, with about ten sound bites interspersed throughout, thanks to a full day of filming done at my home last October. The show will emphasize dramatic footage of the storms, but with plenty of explanatory science about hurricanes and how a warming climate is expected to make the strongest storms stronger. Here’s the promotional description for the show from the PBS website:
In just one devastating month, Houston, Florida, and the Caribbean were changed forever. In summer 2017, three monster hurricanes swept in from the Atlantic one after another, shattering storm records and killing hundreds of people. First, Harvey brought catastrophic rain and flooding to Houston, causing $125 billion in damage. Less than two weeks later, Irma lashed the Caribbean with 180 mph winds—and left the island of Barbuda uninhabitable. Hot on Irma’s heels, Maria intensified from a Category 1 to a Category 5 hurricane in just 30 hours, then ravaged Puerto Rico and left millions of people without power. As the planet warms, are these superstorms the new normal? How well can we predict them? And as the U.S. faces the next hurricane season, does it need to prepare for the reality of climate refugees? NOVA takes you inside the 2017 superstorms and the cutting-edge research that will determine how well equipped we are to deal with hurricanes in the future.
A few of our posts related to the hurricane season of 2017:
Extreme Hurricane Rainfall Expected to Increase in a Warmer World (June 11, 2018)
"Excess Deaths" and the Toll in Puerto Rico from Hurricane Maria (May 29, 2018)
Will Global Warming Create Larger Hurricanes? (April 25, 2018)
Hurricane Winds at Landfall: Why Is It They Seem to Fall Short? (April 12, 2018)
The Three Category 5 Tropical Cyclones of 2017 (January 15, 2018)
Top Ten Global Weather/Climate Events of 2017: A Year of Landfalls and Firestorms (December 29, 2017)
