Climate Crisis Unleashes Early Hurricane Havoc: Record Storms and Rising Flood Risks in the U.S.

Climate change is a new normal that we can no longer pretend we don’t see. For the U.S., it seems that the hurricane season is starting in a concerning way.

Sea surface temperatures are breaking records. Hurricane Beryl set a record for a storm of its kind so early in the hurricane season, killing 64 people and leaving millions of homes without power in Houston. Tropical Storm Debby has caused devastating floods along the South Atlantic coast. And, the hurricane season has just begun.

Deep Sky Research analyzed millions of public data to create a hurricane rainfall model based on climate data from the last four decades to examine these trends.

The data shows that:

• The frequency of extreme hurricane rainfall is increasing by 300%. Deep Sky Research’s model finds that intense hurricane rainfall events, which occurred only once every 100 years, will now happen every 25 years. The more intense hurricane rainfalls and the floods, destruction, and deaths they cause are 300% more likely than they were 40 years ago.
• Most deaths caused by hurricanes result from the massive amounts of water falling on coastal areas. The water also has economic impacts — insurance companies are pulling out of states like Florida due to flood risk. This fuels a crisis in homeowners insurance and harms property values.
• The likelihood of smaller storms has doubled — like Hurricane Beryl, which just had such devastating impacts in the Houston area and the Caribbean. The amount of rainfall that fell in one day in the Houston area was once observed every 7 years, but now it will occur on average every 3 years. These are no longer rare events; they will happen with greater frequency and severity.