I was just making sure since there's been confusion surrounding Ian's timeline (people keep thinking it's this year), sorry. So far though with Milton, while its Cat5 now, it seems like it'll be more like Cat3 when it landfalls. Still insanely destructive but I'm not sure it'll be $50bln+.
It's still going to be pushing all that cat 5 water inland. Massive storm surge coming
My understanding is that it would closer to 100B. I also thought you meant the season as a whole and Helene alone did almost 50B in damage.
from what i hear, a cat 3 is kind of misleading, since all that energy is just spreading out over a wider area. On top of that, if the eye hits north of tampa, the whole tampa bay area could see a 12ft storm surge. www.youtube.com/watch?v=V4Eu...
YouTube video by Ryan Hall, Y'all
The wind scale (1 to 5) is misleading because it does not account for the size (surface area) of the hurricane. Thus, a big cat 3 can be more destructive than a small cat 5 because of storm surge. The surge forecast for Tampa Bay has increased to 15 ft above average sea level.