Topic
Rotating storm systems that form over warm oceans, known regionally as hurricanes and typhoons, whose hazards include wind, storm surge and extreme rainfall.
Hurricane Simon, now a Category 3 storm, is forecast to pass about 15 km off Jalisco state in Mexico without making landfall. The U.S. National Hurricane Center still expects its eastern inner core to produce hurricane conditions.
Reality
Hurricane Simon reached Category 4 strength just off Mexico's Pacific coast on Sunday, with peak winds near 155 mph. US forecasters warned of catastrophic wind, surge and flooding across west-central Mexico near the Puerto Vallarta area.
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Tropical Storm Rachel is due ashore near the California-Mexico border early Sunday under only the second tropical storm watch ever issued in California. Its swell is already damaging homes and flooding streets along the coast, days before the center arrives.
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Indonesia's fires grew roughly fourfold after June as the strongest El Niño on record began forming, with emissions on track to match 2015. The event is still strengthening on 1.4C of warming, and the year's outlook leans on a short record of past El Niños.
Reality
Hawaii's 90-foot Hōlei Sea Arch, formed about 550 years ago, fell into the Pacific between 23 and 27 September, the National Park Service says. No one knows the exact moment, so the case against Tropical Storm Nolo rests on timing.
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El Niño kept the Atlantic free of hurricanes through September for the first time in reliable records by holding wind shear high over warm water. The mark could still fall if the National Hurricane Center upgrades Tropical Storm Fay in its post-season review.
Reality
NASA counts 20 named storms and nine hurricanes in the northeastern and central Pacific by Sept. 28, against 1991-2020 averages of 13.5 and 7.4. Colorado State data put storm energy at more than double the norm, so the season is running stronger as well as busier.
Reality
A Category 1 peak, 30 to 35 inches of projected rain, and warnings across all eight major Hawaiian islands. The wind rating described almost none of the actual exposure.
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King's College London researchers counted deaths from every recorded tropical cyclone and extreme heat event since 2000. The toll sits in a handful of outliers, and they argue the scenarios used in risk assessment are not built to find events without precedent.
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