Written by Staff Writer Staff Writer
CNN Senior Meteorologist Brandon Miller talks about Hurricane Florence:
Hurricane Florence beat all expectations this year.
“All across the Carolinas, once the storm made landfall, the first thing the folks there said is ‘this is it. We are done. This is the end of the line,'” said CNN Chief Meteorologist Tom Sater.
“People were afraid that that meant they would never be the same again and would never have another event of this size happen. That is far from true.”
There was no going back from Florence, he said.
“There’s still life, death, property, insurance matters to people,” Sater said. “But once people come to realize they can put this behind them, they have a fresh start and start coming up with their own plans, it becomes much more normal.”
Before looking ahead to the coming year, what about the record for the Atlantic Ocean?
Anderson said there is a better-than-even chance of seeing the 15th year without a major hurricane.
“We got into a very active hurricane season this year and its extraordinary,” he said. “There are records to be set or near-record, we just need one.”
Looking ahead to next year, Miller focused his mind on hurricane Maria, which made landfall in Puerto Rico in September of 2017 as a Category 4 hurricane.
While there are “doubts” about whether Maria will be recognized as the costliest hurricane in U.S. history, especially when compared to Andrew in 1992, storm damage there was devastating, and recovery has been slow.
There have been only 12 tropical storms across the Atlantic Ocean this year, Anderson said.
“That is hard to do, but they won’t last that long,” Anderson said. “It is not impossible to get to 29, but there is no guarantee that we will get there.”
While storms linger in the Atlantic, an area of low pressure over the Pacific Ocean continues to drift west.
“That’s currently just at 500 miles from Mexico and is an extremely worrying situation,” Miller said.
A tropical depression could form, but Anderson said there is a possibility it will actually strengthen into a tropical storm.
“Regardless, it is very real for the future of the country,” he said.