Florence’s Unique Path From Africa to U.S. Tied to Global Warming
- Florence rode high-pressure ridge resulting from warming seas
- A ‘1 or 2 percent kind of thing,’ stunning the forecasters
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Born off the coast of Africa, Hurricane Florence followed an extraordinarily straight path to the U.S. East Coast that beat historic odds, stunning forecasters and spurring new concerns on the damaging effects of global warming.
Almost all storms that originate where Florence did turn northward in the mid-Atlantic. But a stubborn, unmoving high-pressure ridge that’s increasingly becoming the signature for a warming planet held it on a direct path to the Carolinas, scientists said. It arrived Thursday, when the outer bands of the storm first hit North Carolina, carrying stinging winds and lashing rains that are forecast to last for days.