‘Monster’ storm: Hurricane Florence is a rare threat in an unusual location

The US may have suffered its most costly year for hurricane damages last year but Florence, the first major storm of the 2018 hurricane season, represents an unusual sort of threat to coastal communities. More than 1.5 million people have been told to evacuate Virginia and the Carolinas ahead of the expected landfall of Hurricane Florence, which has strengthened to a category 4 event that the National Weather Service has said is “the storm of a lifetime” and Roy Cooper, North Carolina governor, more bluntly called “a monster.” Rhodium Group’s Dr. Kelly McCusker weighs in: “The primary fuel for hurricanes is a warm sea surface, which is getting warmer with climate change. While we can’t attribute this hurricane solely to climate change, we do expect these types of intense hurricanes to happen more often as the world warms.”