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Hurricane Ian hits the coast of Florida with 155 mile-per-hour winds

A category 4 storm made landfall in Florida on Wednesday afternoon, displacing millions of residents and causing severe flooding and destruction

Environment 28 September 2022

By Corryn Wetzel

Image of Hurricane Ian hitting the west coast of Florida

Hurricane Ian hit the west coast of Florida around 1pm local time on Wednesday 28 September

Hurricane Ian made landfall on the west coast of Florida Wednesday afternoon around 1pm eastern time, blasting the cities of Tampa and Fort Myers with wind, rain and seawater.

The category 4 storm was moving around 16 kilometres per hour when it hit Florida’s southern tip. According to the National Weather Service, the hurricane is expected to barrel up toward Orlando later tonight before continuing its path north.

“This storm is incredibly dangerous, to state the obvious. It’s life-threatening,” said US President Joe Biden in opening remarks at the White House Conference on Hunger, Nutrition, and Health yesterday. “Storm warnings are real, the evacuation notices are real, the danger is real.”

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Earlier this week, Florida officials issued evacuation orders for millions of residents in the most vulnerable counties in the storm’s path. Hurricane Ian was just shy of the most dangerous category 5 threshold on Wednesday morning, with wind speeds up to 250 kilometres per hour.

Officials are particularly concerned about the damage caused by strong winds pushing waves of seawater inland, called storm surge. Surges as high as 3.5 to 5.5 metres above ground level are expected along the west coast of the state near the city of Fort Myers.

As of Wednesday morning, as much as 60 centimetres of rainfall was predicted in the south-west part of the state, which has resulted in unprecedented flooding. The National Weather Service anticipates that most rainfall in the state will occur today, Thursday and Friday.

Millions of Florida residents are expected to lose power. Before making landfall in Florida, Hurricane Ian knocked out power for 11 million people in Cuba on Tuesday night and killed two residents.

According to the White House, hundreds of personnel from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and thousands from the National Guard will be on the ground to offer food, water and shelter to Floridians in the wake of the storm.

Hurricane Ian is expected to weaken in intensity as it travels north through Georgia, South Carolina and North Carolina this weekend. Ian is the ninth named storm of the 2022 Atlantic hurricane season and is likely made more severe by human-caused climate change.

The hidden science of weather and climate change Simon Clark at New Scientist Live this October

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