What creates the extraordinary power of the 2017 hurricane season?

After Harvey was Irma, then Maria, three super typhoons continuously formed and swept the western Atlantic region in less than a month.

After Harvey devastated Houston, Irma was lined up behind and quickly became the most powerful super typhoon in history on the Atlantic. Currently, Super Typhoon Maria continues and continues to maintain level 4-5 after sweeping the island nation of Dominica, preparing to land Puerto Rico as well as the US Virgin Islands.

However, according to the expert's forecast, it would not be surprising if there were at least two more storms.

The 2017 hurricane season sees an unusual frequency of major storms.(Photo: WordlessTech).

According to the New York Times (NYT), of the 13 named US storms in 2017, 7 games have become super typhoons. The same or more serious situation only occurred in 4 storm seasons since 1995. Of these 7 super typhoons, 4 have reached level 3 or higher.

It is not uncommon for the storms to be connected to each other, the difference of the 2017 hurricane season is a combination of frequency and intensity . Six storms in the same month may have happened, but two storms of level 4 with two consecutive storms of level 5 are considered unusual.

According to NYT, another unusual thing is that three super typhoons move through an area in just 3 weeks, namely Irma, Jose and Maria, passing through the northern Caribbean islands.

What makes this anomaly? According to National Geographic, this year's storm season becomes special because of favorable atmospheric conditions and surface water temperature warmer than normal.

According to the Center for Climate Forecasting, many different conditions, including strong monsoon winds in West Africa combine and make the Caribbean Sea and part of the Atlantic Ocean a fertile area for storms, also known as major development areas .

Kerry Emanuel, a scientist at MIT, said there are two outstanding factors that made the 2017 storm season become unusually positive.The first is the small difference between the wind speed near the sea surface and the high, making the storms can form and maintain stability. Second , the Atlantic is showing great heat potential, which can quickly evaporate into the storm.

Thermal potential can be considered as a kind of speed limit for super typhoons. 'The higher the speed limit, the more favorable conditions for storms to form and storms can become stronger ,' Emanuel explained.

Storm Maria with a super-tight hollow eye can be seen from satellites.(Photo: NOOA).

Climate change is also one of the factors considered to be affecting the operation of storms. However, super typhoons are not a phenomenon that happens so often enough for scientists to collect data to study this relationship accurately.

The presence of more super typhoons does not mean that the number of super land storms will increase and, according to the US climate science report, there will be more tropical storms. the possibility of strengthening into super typhoon over the coming decades.

Besides, super typhoons also bring more rainfall in the future, because warmer air can hold more water. Many scientists agree that the previous record of super typhoon Harvey has mainly come from rising temperatures due to human activities.