EcoWatch
Facebook 573k Twitter 238k Instagram 37k Subscribe Subscribe
  • Climate
  • Energy
  • Policy
  • Renewables
  • Culture
  • Science
  • Go Solar Today
      • Top Companies By State
        • California Solar Companies
        • Texas Solar Companies
        • New York Solar Companies
        • Florida Solar Companies
        • See All States
      • Top Incentives By State
        • California Solar Incentives
        • Texas Solar Incentives
        • New York Solar Incentives
        • Florida Solar Incentives
        • See All States
      • Solar Panel Costs By State
        • Solar Panel Costs in California
        • Solar Panel Costs in Texas
        • Solar Panel Costs in New York
        • Solar Panel Costs in Florida
        • See All States
      • Value of Solar by State
        • Is Solar Worth It In California?
        • Is Solar Worth It in Texas?
        • Is Solar Worth It New York?
        • Is Solar Worth It In Florida?
        • See All States
      • Company Reviews
        • Tesla Solar Review
        • Sunrun Solar Review
        • SunPower Solar Review
        • Vivint Solar Review
        • See All Companies
      • Common Solar Questions
        • Can You Get Free Solar Panels?
        • Does Solar Increase Home Value?
        • What’re The Best Solar Batteries?
        • Can You Finance Solar?
        • Where To Buy Solar Panels?
        • Payback On Solar Panels?
      • Solar Resources
        • Interactive Solar Calculator
        • Federal Solar Tax Credit 2023
        • Best Solar Panels For Most Homes
        • Tesla Solar Roof Review
        • Cheapest Solar Panels
      • Companies Compared
        • SunPower vs Tesla Solar
        • SunRun vs Tesla Solar
        • SunRun vs SunPower
        • SunPower vs Momentum Solar
        • SunPower vs ADT Solar
EcoWatch
  • Climate
  • Energy
  • Policy
  • Renewables
  • Culture
  • Science
  • Go Solar Today
    • Go Solar Today
    • Top Companies By State
      • California Solar Companies
      • Texas Solar Companies
      • New York Solar Companies
      • Florida Solar Companies
      • See All States
    • Top Incentives By State
      • California Solar Incentives
      • Texas Solar Incentives
      • New York Solar Incentives
      • Florida Solar Incentives
      • See All States
    • Solar Panel Costs By State
      • Solar Panel Costs in California
      • Solar Panel Costs in Texas
      • Solar Panel Costs in New York
      • Solar Panel Costs in Florida
      • See All States
    • Value of Solar by State
      • Is Solar Worth It In California?
      • Is Solar Worth It in Texas?
      • Is Solar Worth It New York?
      • Is Solar Worth It In Florida?
      • See All States
    • Company Reviews
      • Tesla Solar Review
      • Sunrun Solar Review
      • SunPower Solar Review
      • Vivint Solar Review
      • See All Companies
    • Common Solar Questions
      • Can You Get Free Solar Panels?
      • Does Solar Increase Home Value?
      • What’re The Best Solar Batteries?
      • Can You Finance Solar?
      • Where To Buy Solar Panels?
      • Payback On Solar Panels?
    • Solar Resources
      • Interactive Solar Calculator
      • Federal Solar Tax Credit 2023
      • Best Solar Panels For Most Homes
      • Tesla Solar Roof Review
      • Cheapest Solar Panels
    • Companies Compared
      • SunPower vs Tesla Solar
      • SunRun vs Tesla Solar
      • SunRun vs SunPower
      • SunPower vs Momentum Solar
      • SunPower vs ADT Solar

The best of EcoWatch right in your inbox. Sign up for our email newsletter!

    • About EcoWatch
    • Contact EcoWatch
    • Terms of Use
    • Privacy Policy
    • Learn About Solar Energy
    Facebook 573k Twitter 238k Instagram 37k
    EcoWatch
    • About EcoWatch
    • Contact EcoWatch
    • Terms of Use
    • Privacy Policy
    • Learn About Solar Energy
    Facebook 573k Twitter 238k Instagram 37k
    Home Climate

    Back-to-Back Hurricanes Are Already More Likely, but the Chances Will Surge as the Climate Warms

    By: Olivia Rosane
    Updated: March 1, 2023
    Edited by Chris McDermott
    Facebook icon Twitter icon Pinterest icon Email icon
    In a satellite image from NOAA, Hurricane Florence churns through the Atlantic Ocean toward the U.S. East Coast, followed by Hurricane Isaac and then Hurricane Helene
    Hurricane Florence churns through the Atlantic Ocean toward the U.S. East Coast, followed by Hurricane Isaac and then Hurricane Helene on Sept. 11, 2018. NOAA via Getty Images
    Why you can trust us

    Founded in 2005 as an Ohio-based environmental newspaper, EcoWatch is a digital platform dedicated to publishing quality, science-based content on environmental issues, causes, and solutions.

    Facebook icon Twitter icon Pinterest icon Email icon

    In October of 2020, the town of Lake Charles, Louisiana, was in the process of recovering from Hurricane Laura, a Category 4 storm that had damaged nearly every structure in the town six weeks earlier. 

    Then Category 2 Hurricane Delta bore down, flooding several of the already damaged buildings.

    “Add Laura and Delta together and it’s just absolutely unprecedented and catastrophic,” Lake Charles Mayor Nic Hunter told The Associated Press at the time. 

    But while its mayor called Lake Charles’s experience “unprecedented,” back-to-back tropical storms are becoming increasingly likely in the U.S. and could become even more frequent along the U.S. Gulf and East Coasts as global temperatures continue to climb. That’s the conclusion of a new study published in Nature Climate Change Monday that offers yet another warning for vulnerable regions as they adapt to the climate crisis. 

    More From EcoWatch
    • How Does Solar Hold Up in Extreme Weather?
    • The Best Solar Panels for Hot Climates
    • Solar Panel Cost

    “Rising sea levels and climate change make sequential damaging hurricanes more likely as the century progresses,” lead author and postdoctoral researcher at Princeton University Dazhi Xi said in a press release. “Today’s extremely rare events will become far more frequent.”

    New paper from our group in @NatureClimate! We investigate the risk of back-to-back hurricane strikes along the US coastline, finding that these temporally compounding events may become much more frequent by the end of the century. https://t.co/rhREsvd0lr

    — Avantika Gori (@avantika_gori) February 28, 2023

    One hurricane striking an area is bad enough, but when another strong storm follows in quick succession, it can compound the impacts of the first. For example, when a weakened Hurricane Nicholas passed over Louisiana as a tropical depression on September 15, 2021, the ground was already sodden from the Category 4 Hurricane Ida around 15 days before, leading the weaker storm to have worse consequences than it would have on its own, as the study authors noted. 

    The researchers first decided to investigate whether this was truly happening more frequently in 2017, when Hurricanes Harvey, Irma and Maria all struck, according to the press release.

    “Sequential hurricane hazards are happening already, so we felt they should be studied,” research leader and Princeton associate professor of civil and environmental engineering Ning Lin said in the press release. “There has been an increasing trend in recent decades.”

    First, the team looked at whether sequential tropical storms were really on the rise. Because there weren’t enough actual storms since reliable record-keeping began around 1950, the researchers used computer simulations to round out the data, AP News explained. They found that the risk of back-to-back storms had increased in seven out of nine coastal locations studied between 1949 and 2018, according to the study. The risk is still low — the highest likelihood they found was still less than 10 percent for storms within 30 days of each other — but in Sandy Hook, New Jersey, the risk had still doubled over the study period.

    When it comes to the future, however, the risk could get much higher. The study authors next considered what would happen to the chance of back-to-back tropical storms under a high and moderate emission climate scenario. In both cases, the risk of two tropical storms striking within 15 days along the Gulf or East Coast went up significantly by 2100, from every 10-to-92 years to every one-to-two years in the worst-case scenario and every one-to-three years in the moderate one.

    “For people in harm’s way this is very bad news,” University of Albany hurricane scientist Kristen Corbosiero, who did not participate in the study, told AP News. “We (scientists) have been warning about the increase in heavy rain and significant storm surges with landfalling TCs (tropical cyclones) in a warming climate and the results of this study show this is the case.”

    The main reasons for the increase in risk are that sea level rise makes storm surges more impactful and warmer temperatures lead to more intense, wetter storms. 

    The scientists said that policy makers should take their findings into account when drafting recovery plans and improving infrastructure in at-risk areas, according to the press release. 

    “If a power system requires 15 days to recover from a major hurricane, we cannot wait that long in the future because the next storm can hit before you can restore power, as in the case of Nicholas following Ida,” Lin said in the release. “We need to think about plans, rescue workers, resources. How will we plan for this?”

    Subscribe to get exclusive updates in our daily newsletter!

      By signing up, you agree to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy & to receive electronic communications from EcoWatch Media Group, which may include marketing promotions, advertisements and sponsored content.

      Olivia Rosane

      Olivia Rosane is a freelance writer and reporter with a decade’s worth of experience. She has been contributing to EcoWatch daily since 2018 and has also covered environmental themes for Treehugger, The Trouble, YES! Magazine and Real Life. She holds a Ph.D. in English Literature from the University of Cambridge and a master’s in Art and Politics from Goldsmiths, University of London.
      Facebook icon Twitter icon Pinterest icon Email icon

      Read More

      <strong>If Your Strawberries Taste Bland, Pesticides May Be to Blame</strong>
      If you’ve ever bitten into a juicy, red strawberry only
      By Cristen Hemingway Jaynes
      Tornadoes Leave Trail of Destruction in Oklahoma
      At least one person has died and a dozen people
      By Climate Nexus
      Could Solar Geoengineering Trigger War?
      Alongside drought, famine, and climatic destabilization, you can add war
      By Climate Nexus

      Subscribe to get exclusive updates in our daily newsletter!

        By signing up, you agree to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy & to receive electronic communications from EcoWatch Media Group, which may include marketing promotions, advertisements and sponsored content.

        Latest Articles

        • Back-to-Back Hurricanes Are Already More Likely, but the Chances Will Surge as the Climate Warms
          by Olivia Rosane
          March 1, 2023
        • If Your Strawberries Taste Bland, Pesticides May Be to Blame
          by Cristen Hemingway Jaynes
          February 28, 2023
        • U.S. Averages One Chemical Accident Every Two Days, Analysis Finds
          by Paige Bennett
          February 28, 2023
        • Tornadoes Leave Trail of Destruction in Oklahoma
          by Climate Nexus
          February 28, 2023
        • Could Solar Geoengineering Trigger War?
          by Climate Nexus
          February 28, 2023
        • The War in Ukraine Hasn’t Left Europe Freezing in the Dark, But It Has Caused Energy Crises in Unexpected Places
          by The Conversation
          February 28, 2023
        • China Approved Two New Coal Plants per Week in 2022, Study Finds
          by Olivia Rosane
          February 28, 2023
        • Red States Lead U.S. in Wind and Solar Power Production, Study Finds
          by Cristen Hemingway Jaynes
          February 27, 2023
        EcoWatch

        The best of EcoWatch right in your inbox. Sign up for our email newsletter!

          • Climate Climate
          • Animals Animals
          • Health + Wellness Health + Wellness
          • Insights + Opinion Insights + Opinion
          • Adventure Adventure
          • Oceans Oceans
          • Business Business
          • Solar Solar
          • About EcoWatch
          • Contact EcoWatch
          • EcoWatch Reviews
          • Terms of Use
          • Privacy Policy
          • Learn About Solar Energy
          • Learn About Deregulated Energy
          • EcoWatch UK
          Follow Us
          Facebook 573k
          Twitter 238k
          Instagram 37k
          Subscribe Subscribe

          Experts for a healthier planet and life.

          Mentioned by:
          Learn more