Media Claim Climate Change Worsened Hurricane Helene While Ignore Contradictory Data

by Anthony Watts | Climate Change Dispatch

Hurricane Helene made landfall on Friday, Sept 27 in Florida as a Category 4 storm and then made its way inland, dumping large amounts of rain followed by flooding.[emphasis, links added]

Predictably, many media outlets immediately rushed to blame climate change for this particular storm and its damage. These claims are false.

Data shows there is no climate signal over the past 50 years of hurricane activity either worsening intensity or creating more frequent hurricanes. Additionally, historical records show that flooding such as what was seen from this storm has happened in the same areas before.

This is the second time this week Climate Realism is covering this particular storm, but the claims from the media are extensive and worth debunking more than once.

Here’s a sampling of some of the headlines. The Hill wrote, “How climate change is intensifying storms like Hurricane Helene.”

Yahoo news claimed, “Helene shows that hurricanes in the age of climate change don’t wreck just coastlines,” while The Guardian opined, “ ‘Nowhere Is Safe’: Shattered Asheville Shows Stunning Reach Of Climate Crisis“.

The Associated Press (AP) chimed in with, “Helene and other storms dumped a whopping 40 trillion gallons of rain on the South.”

Even Jane Castor, the Mayor of Tampa, Fla., jumped on the climate alarm bandwagon by declaring in a CNN interview, “I don’t know that there’s anyone that anyone can deny the effects of climate change on the sheer power of the storms we’re seeing now.”

All of these claims ignore actual data and historical records. They also ignore the unique meteorological (not climatological) circumstances that created the potential for more rainfall and flooding.

First, it needs to be said that weather events are not climate events. Weather operates on vastly different timescales than climate does. Read Full Article >