Analysis | Hurricanes Harvey, Irma, Jose, and Maria have one thing in common. They ‘exploded’ quickly before striking land
Hurricane Maria went from a tropical depression to a category 5 hurricane in just 2 and a half days
“Maria is developing the dreaded pinhole eye,” wrote US National Hurricane Centre forecaster Jack Beven Monday evening, as the storm reached category 4 intensity.
That inward contraction of a hurricane’s eye can be one telltale indicator of what hurricane gurus technically call “rapid intensification” although a more evocative word might simply be “explosion”. Whatever you call it, it’s something we keep seeing this year. Harvey, Irma, Jose, and now Maria have all rapidly strengthened – and all too often, have done it just before striking land.
It’s a dangerous and scary phenomenon that scientists and forecasters are still trying to understand.
“It’s not a common event. Typically that occurs in maybe 5 per cent of our forecasts,” said Mark DeMaria, acting deputy director of the US National Hurricane Centre.
But DeMaria said that this season was seeing more rapid intensification events than usual and that Maria, in particular, appears to have set a key record for hurricane rapid intensification in the Atlantic.
“Looking back through the records, Maria went from a tropical depression to a category 5 hurricane in just 2 and a half days,” he said.
