North Atlantic Tropical Cyclones have become increasingly likely to “stall” near the coast

Hurricane Dorian was a powerful storm that reached a maximum sustained wind of 185 mph (Cat 5 ≥ 157 mph) during its landfall over Abaco Islands on September 1, 2019. Hurricane Dorian made landfall on Grand Bahama with about the same intensity and stalled just north of the island for 24 hours, causing massive damages with its catastrophic winds and heavy rainfall. An article published in npj Climate and Atmospheric sciences reported that North Atlantic tropical cyclones (TCs) that “stall” near the coasts, similar to Hurricane Dorian, have become more likely in recent years.  The study also found a significant positive trend in coastal rainfall from TCs that stalled during 1948–2017. Thus, the study concluded that the significant increases in TC stalling frequency during the recent period have exacerbated TC hazards for coastal populations. This study did not attribute the increasing trend of TC “stall” to anthropogenic climate change. See Knudson et al. (2019) for an updated assessment on TCs and climate change.

Hall, T. M., & Kossin, J. P. (2019). Hurricane stalling along the North American coast and implications for rainfall. npj Climate and Atmospheric Science, 2, 17. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41612-019-0074-8

Knutson, T., Camargo, S. J., Chan, J. C., Emanuel, K., Ho, C. H., Kossin, J., … & Wu, L. (2019). Tropical cyclones and climate change assessment: Part II. projected response to anthropogenic warming. Bull. Amer. Meteor. Soc. https://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/abs/10.1175/BAMS-D-18-0194.1