MIAMI — Before Hurricane Ian slammed into Florida’s southwest coast with 155 mph winds, it went through two separate bursts of so-called “rapid intensification” when a cyclone’s top wind speeds rise by 35 mph in a single day.
This process took Ian from tropical storm to Category 4 monster in 36 hours. It’s a dangerous phenomenon that climate change may make more common in future hurricane seasons.
“It’s too early to say exactly how climate change affected this one storm,” said Kieran Bhatia, a climate researcher at Princeton University who studies hurricanes. “But, on average, we’ve seen multiple studies that show the conditions in the North Atlantic basin are providing more opportunities for storms to intensify.”
