Had the Western Hemisphere experienced two back-to-back category 4 hurricane landfalls before the recent storms in Nicaragua?
By Jacob Alabab-Moser
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YES
In September 2017, Hurricanes Harvey and Irma made landfall in the southern United States within two weeks of each other, marking "the first time in recorded history that two category 4 or higher hurricanes struck the U.S. mainland in the same year," according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. In November 2020, two category 4 storms, Eta and Iota, made landfall in Nicaragua.
Climate change is associated with larger, more intense and more frequent storms, a University of South Florida weather and climate professor told Scientific American in 2017. He noted that a coincidence of conditions has to be "just right" to sustain the storms.
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