- Sandra became the latest Category 4 hurricane of record early Thursday morning in either the eastern Pacific or Atlantic basins.
- In other words, Sandra is the strongest hurricane so late in the season. Only three other eastern Pacific storms have formed later in the calendar than Sandra in records dating to 1949.
- Hurricane Sandra became the second latest forming hurricane on record, behind Hurricane Winnie in 1983.
- There is no record of an intact depression or named storm making a landfall on either Baja California or Mexico’s Pacific coast so late in the season. According to hurricane specialist Michael Lowry, the latest eastern Pacific landfall on record was Tara on November 12, 1961. So, Sandra is likely to shatter this record by over two weeks.
- The previous latest major hurricane in either the central-eastern Pacific or Atlantic was an unnamed storm in 1934, that remained a major hurricane into Nov. 23.
- The previous latest Category 4+ tropical cyclone in either the eastern Pacific or Atlantic basins was Hurricane Kenneth on Nov. 22, 2011.
- Sandra is the 30th Category 3+ tropical cyclone of the year in the Northern Hemisphere, far exceeded the previous record of 23 such storms in 1997 and 2004.
Hmmmmm. Isn’t this what the climate models predicted? And what climate scientists have been saying will be the result of global warming?
Along with record global temperatures and the recently released studies showing that there has been no “hiatus”, shouldn’t this get the deniers to admit that AGW continues unabated and that the cause seems to be CO2 from burning fossil fuels?
Good article on RealClimate on the so called hiatus, it’s time to bury this myth that as far as I remember was started by David Rose in the dreaded tabloid Daily/SundayMail.
Hiatus or Bye-atus?
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2015/11/hiatus-or-bye-atus/
A new paper outlines the extent that Exxon and Koch manipulated opinion and denial. I would hope that remaining deniers (that are not in the pay and pockets of vested interests) would recognize the way they have been cunningly manipulated.
http://www.techtimes.com/articles/111109/20151127/exxon-koch-brothers-funded-studies-to-amplify-climate-change-doubt.htm
Nothing convinces deniers.
And by now, what with the constant occurrence of extreme weather events, I have to wonder if the fence-sitters are just getting used to the new abnormal.
The younger generation haven’t known anything else.
They have no memory of cold, snowy winters that could begin in October and last through March. (I went to school north of Chicago for 3 years, and I sure remember them.)
They have no memory of spring coming in May and June, when today we see 80s in March.
Nothing convinces deniers because they have made it part of their core identity. My rabid right-wing uncle posted a graphic on Facebook that was something like “I am a bible-believing, gun-toting, climate change denying, die-hard conservative.”
When anyone starts a sentence with “I am” and it then includes climate change denial afterwards, there is literally nothing that will convince them otherwise, because it would mean losing a part of themselves. And that’s how it is for him. Because his belief is not evidence-based, there is no evidence that will change his mind.
After having this epiphany, I now just respond to his climate science rants by explicitly stating that I am not trying to change his mind, but simply showing the facts for other relatives who haven’t yet made up their minds. It takes an enormous burden off what I need to communicate.
Hate to say it but the only storms that matter are the ones that make landfall and, fortunately, very few do.
If that changes significantly, then expect the conversation to change quickly.
If storms get stronger but fewer reach land, the deniers & cooligans won’t give a damn.
actually, its only the storms that make landfall where white people live.
I’ll post Phil Klotzbach’s eye popping graph of major hurricanes tomorrow.