Comment by jonwachob91 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by jonwachob91 | Hacker News Reader

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Another long time florida man here

Katrina was 15 years ago. Prior to that crazy sequence of hurricanes, the previous major hurricane was Andrew in 92. Very few cat5 hurricanes make landfall in the US as cat5s (unfortunately that isn't true for the Caribbean islands). These major storms have been par for the course for as long as records have been kept. One of the major reasons the British lost the Revolutionary War was a fleet with reinforcements was wiped out from a major hurricane while en route.

The other large-scale events you mention aren't related to each other at all... COVID, politics, and California wild fires have nothing to do with hurricane formation... So I'm unsure how the presence of COVID and other stuff would increase the likelihood of a major hurricane this year...

Thanks for the info and context.

> The other large-scale events you mention aren't related to each other at all

They are not directly related by cause, however they are all happening at the same time - so the effects of those events could influence each other.

COVID cannot cause a hurricane, but it could e.g. make evacuation plans more difficult.

Effects of modern industrial society on the planet could be a common cause in an abstract sense: It causes climate change, which could influence the strength and frequency of both hurricanes and wildfires and it seems to be responsible for increased likelihood of zoonotic diseases due to loss if habitat. It's also one (of many) points of contention in the political situation.

COVID is a complicating factor in hurricane and wildfire response, affecting e.g. senior care, shelters, and healthcare capacity. It follows that a hurricane could be considered "worse" this year given the preexisting load on the systems necessary to handle major weather events effectively. I believe that's the sort of influence the parent comment was alluding to.

> COVID, politics

These two are intimately related, though none of them are related to hurricanes (well, wildfires and unusual hurricane behavior might have a common contributing cause in climate change, but that's pretty weak as a connection between specific individual events.)

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