Climate Changed
Why Harvey Is Stuck Near Texas
Hurricanes gain strength from warmer oceans, but climate change might be causing another problem higher in the sky.
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Meteorologists explain that Hurricane Harvey stalled off the Texas coast because two high-pressure atmospheric masses—huge bookends made of air—have squeezed it in place, and there haven’t been any high-level currents to help steer it away.
Harvey is yet another of several recent weather disasters marked by such shocking staying power, punishing whole regions for days or weeks on end—or longer. Others include a massive heatwave over Russia and flooding in Pakistan in 2010, the Texas drought of 2011, the California drought that began around the same time and continued through this year, and the flooding last year in Texas’s neighbor to east, Louisiana.