Octopus Overlords

Isgrimnur wrote: ↑Sun Oct 14, 2018 11:12 pm Missing shingles, downed fences, trashed vehicle, one broken window, and no interior damage. Plenty of work to do and waiting on power and water to come back, but no major losses.

A piece of the United States has been dramatically wiped off the map after an island in Hawaii was washed away by a powerful hurricane.

East Island, a remote spit of gravel and sand that sat atop a coral reef, has vanished after having this misfortune to come into contact with Hurricane Walaka, an intense storm that surged past Hawaii earlier this month.

Scientists have confirmed the disappearance of the 11-acre island after comparing satellite images of the surrounding French Frigate Shoals, part of an enormous protected marine area in the north-western Hawaiian Islands.

“I uttered a swear word. I had a ‘holy cow!’ moment, somewhat in disbelief that it had disappeared,” said Chip Fletcher, a professor of earth sciences at the University of Hawaii. Fletcher and his colleagues were in the process of researching East Island through drone videos and taking samples of sand and corals to ascertain the age of the island and gauge its future prospects in the face of climate change.

“The island was probably one to two thousand years old and we were only there in July, so for it to be lost right now is pretty bad luck,” Fletcher said.
...
Despite its size, the island played an important role for wildlife, including the critically endangered Hawaiian monk seal, a species that numbers just 1,400 individuals, with many of the seals raising their young on East Island. Green sea turtles, which are also threatened, and seabirds such as albatrosses, which often had their young preyed upon by circling tiger sharks, also depended on the island.

Isgrimnur wrote: ↑Wed Oct 24, 2018 1:34 pm Hawaii

A piece of the United States has been dramatically wiped off the map after an island in Hawaii was washed away by a powerful hurricane.

Category 5, the strongest on the 1-5 Saffir-Simpson scale, begins at 157 mph. Its winds were previously estimated at 155 mph, a high-end Category 4.
...
Michael thus becomes the first storm to make landfall as a Category 5 in the United States since Andrew struck southern Florida in August 1992 (Andrew was also upgraded from a Category 4 to a 5 in post-storm analysis). Michael was blamed for 49 deaths and more than $5.5 billion in damage.

The upgrade comes after the National Hurricane Center sifted through and reanalyzed reams of data. It examined “aircraft winds, surface winds, surface pressures, satellite intensity estimates, and Doppler radar velocities — including data and analyses that were not available in real time,” the Hurricane Center’s post-storm analysis reported.
...
The Hurricane Center notes that Michael now ranks as the fourth-strongest hurricane on record to make landfall in the United States, trailing only the Labor Day Hurricane of 1935, Hurricane Camille in 1969 and Hurricane Andrew in 1992.

It also becomes the third hurricane to strike Florida as a Category 5, and its October landfall made it the latest a storm this strong has ever struck U.S. shores.

So what is going on? While some scientists have suggested that warmer oceans may cause a lengthening of hurricane seasons in the Atlantic and other basins, the interplay between hurricane activity and climate science is complex. There is no definitive answer as to whether the June 1 "beginning" of the Atlantic hurricane season should be brought forward.

In this case, Klotzbach said he thinks a lot of the reason for the heightened activity in the past decade is due to continued improvements in technology to detect storms and provide wind speed data. Given the overall rarity of such storms, it is difficult to discern any reliable decadal or multi-decadal variability—but that may be factor as well, he said.