WASHINGTON: A rare trio of hurricanes are churning through the Pacific Ocean this week, with scientists attributing the phenomenon to waters warmed by a historically strong El Nino.
Tropical Storm Marie strengthened into a hurricane off the coast of Mexico’s Baja California, lining up behind Hurricanes Karina and Lowell, both rated as major Category 4, which were making their way westward across the Pacific.
Three tropical cyclones are ‘definitely rare to see’, Julia Cole, a climate scientist at the University of Michigan, said.
‘El Nino warming sets the stage for these storms, which are fueled in large part by warm waters when the tropical Pacific is warmer than normal we see an increase in strong storms,’ Cole said.
Lowell was about 725 kilometres south of Hilo, Hawaii, and ‘is expected to remain a major hurricane for the next several days’ as it moves west. It is expected to make landfall by Monday.
‘Swells from Lowell are likely to cause lifethreatening surf and rip current conditions in portions of the Hawaiian Islands during the next several days,’ the National Hurricane Center (NHC) said, adding that its long-range track and intensity forecasts were ‘more uncertain than usual.
Hawaii is still recovering from the impacts of Hurricane Lala, which brushed past the southern part of the Big Island last month, bringing destructive winds and severe flash floods.
The NHC said on Wednesday that Karina weakened slightly as it moved northwest, but is likely to remain a hurricane for the next couple of days.
Lowell and Karina aretrailed to the east by Marie, which was 380 miles southwest of the southern tip of Baja California, generating swells impacting portions of the coast of southwest Mexico and the Baja California peninsula.
Warm waters provide fuel for storms, and El Nino’s effect on the atmosphere leaves little vertical wind shear over the Pacific, creating favourable conditions for hurricanes to intensify, said Benjamin Kirtman, an atmospheric scientist at the University of Miami.
‘The climate system has significantly warmed over the last 20 years or so,’ he said.
The sea surface temperature anomaly how much warmer the ocean is compared to average is already near record high, Kirtman added.
‘There’s no other way to put it it is juicy out there right now.
A similar train of four tropical cyclones took place in 2015, another intense El Nino year, when Typhoon Kilo, Hurricane Ignacio, Hurricane Jimena and Tropical Depression 14E crossed the Pacific at once.
Impact felt worldwide This year’s El Nino has a 69 percent chance of becoming the strongest on record, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and is already unleashing extreme weather across the globe even though it is not expected to peak until October-December.
Peru, the world’s largest catcher of anchovy, is facing a devastating blow from warming seas that have gutted production, according to industry officials.
In Sudan, El Nino is blamed for delaying crucial rains that have led water levels in the Nile to drop precipitously.-AFP