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Hurricane Milton , which is expected to make landfall on the Florida coast Wednesday or early Thursday ( Oct. 9 or 10 ) , seemed to come out of nowhere : Just a tropical violent storm on Sunday , the hurricane roared into the Category 5 reach Monday ( Oct. 7 ) , with sustained winds of 180 miles per hour ( 298 kilometer / h ) before weakening more or less on Tuesday ( Oct. 8) .
But how close is Milton ’s sustained wind speed to the theoretic maximum ? And is there a operose limit ?
Satellite imagery of Hurricane Milton on October 8th, 2024.
There is a " speed limit , " on sustained confidential information speed , called maximal potential intensity level , but it is not absolute : It is dictated by several broker , include the heat present in the ocean . Current calculations of the maximal likely strength for violent storm typically peaks around 200 mph ( 322 kilometer / hour ) .
But that may change in the come X as oceans warm and the clime change . Already , the potential for strong violent storm has been come up over the past 30 years , saidKerry Emanuel , an emeritus professor of atmospheric science at MIT who make grow the role model . So have actual monster storms : Five storms on record have had jazz surpass 192 miles per hour ( 309 km / minute ) . All of those have occurred since 2013 .
" I think by the end of the century , if we do n’t do a lot of curbing , it ’s going to be closer to 220 [ mph ] , " Emanuel told Live Science .
The maximum wind speed of a hurricane is governed by the water temperature (Tocean), the temperature at the cloud-top level (Taloft), and E, a factor that determines how quickly heat can be transferred from ocean to air.
Related : We may ask a new ' Category 6 ' hurricane level for winds over 192 miles per hour , study indicate
What drives a storm
The speed demarcation line on hurricane winds is relativelyeasy to calculate , saidJames Kossin , a climate scientist who is retire from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration ( NOAA ) and now consults for the climate hazard modeling means First Street .
" The fuel for the hurricanes is the heat they ’re drawing from the sea , " Kossin said . " The warmer the pee , the more fuel is available . "
Other agent help square up maximum potential chroma , such as the heat in the atmosphere and temperature of the cloud tiptop , which determines how quickly hotness can move from sea airfoil to the top of a violent storm , and wind shear , which is the deviation in wind upper and commission at different heights in the atmosphere . Too much hint shear can tear a storm apart , weakening it and foreclose it from hit its full potency . Astudy of stormsbetween 1962 and 1992 found that only 20 % of Atlantic cyclone attain 80 % or more of their maximal potential intensity , though there is evidence that a smashing proportionality of violent storm are pop to get cheeseparing to their theoretical limit , Emanuel read .
As the ocean and standard atmosphere warm , storms are getting strong . In 2020 , Kossin and his fellow describe thatthe proportion of major hurricanes increased by 8 % per decadebetween 1979 and 2017 . That means that as the climate warms , strong and quickly intensifying storm like Milton may become shockingly common .
New hurricane categories?
Hurricanes are graded on the Saffir - Simpson scale , which ranges from Category 1 ( begin at sustained steer of 74 miles per hour , or 119 klick / 60 minutes winds ) to a class 5 ( start at free burning winds of 157 miles per hour , or 252 km / hour wind ) . This scale is incomplete , as it is free-base on jazz speed and does n’t include damage from violent storm surge or flooding , which are deadlier than wind , Emanuel said .
The increasing probability of strong violent storm spurred Kossin and his colleagueMichael Wehnerof Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory tosuggest in Februarythat the Saffir - Simpson scale may need a " family 6 , " which would let in storm with farting of more than 192 mph ( 308 km / h ) .
The researchers identify five storms that would already condition for that category : Typhoon Haiyan ( 2013 ) , Hurricane Patricia ( 2015 ) , Typhoon Meranti ( 2016 ) , Typhoon Goni ( 2020 ) and Typhoon Surigae ( 2021 ) . Patricia was the most intense on record and the only one with winds over 200 miles per hour . ( The hurricane ’s steer get to 215 miles per hour ( 345 km / h ) but weaken to 150 mph ( 241 km / h ) by the clip the storm made landfall . )
Wehner and Kossin view looking at hurricanes in a theoretic " class 7 " with winds over 229 mph ( 368 km / h ) . But their calculations showed there is presently a negligible risk of a storm that warm , Wehner tell Live Science , so they left the possibility out of their paper .
No one really know the maximum wind a hurricane could theoretically sustain if water temperature keep get up , Wehner said . " In these really strong , distinct eyewalls where the winds are moving like crazy , these flow are very unstable , " he said .
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The exact dynamics of the eyewall are n’t fully understood , Wehner said . Milton ’s weakening came after an eyewall replacement , which happens when a raw band of thunderstorms forms around the storm ’s oculus , gag off the moisture to the original eyewall . The shift deconcentrated Milton ’s energy , increase the overall size of it of the tempest but also belittle its top wind . It may be that , at extreme wind speeds , these storm - weakening phenomenon become inevitable , but that is n’t well understood , Wehner allege .
" Say we ’re in a 4 - level warmer earth , which is almost unthinkable , where the maximum possible intensity is well above 192 mph , " he suppose . " Could these violent storm in reality affirm themselves ? I do n’t think we know . "
