Conditions That Form More Hurricanes Also Protect U.S., Study Finds.
'In October, Hurricane Matthew roared through the Caribbean as a near-worst-case Category 4 storm, with high winds that devastated Haiti and other countries. But when it made landfall in the United States a few days later, Matthew limped into South Carolina as a Category 1, bringing torrential rains and flooding but little else.
That storm was a prime example of what a new study suggests is a remarkable feature regarding Atlantic hurricanes and their impact: When climatic conditions favor a lot of hurricane activity, they also create a buffer zone that weakens the storms as they approach the coastal United States.
“It’s an incredibly lucky phenomenon,” said James Kossin, an atmospheric scientist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the author of the study, published Wednesday in Nature, which looked at hurricane data from 1947 to 2015. “It’s given us a really nice barrier and decreased our threats.”
On the other hand, the study points out, in periods of low hurricane activity, storms — especially major ones — are more likely to intensify before making landfall, potentially leading to more damage.'>>>
http://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/04/science/hurricanes-us.html?
