Tropical Storm Karen Posed No Serious Threat To US

Tropical storm Karen never reached its full potential and that is good news for the people on the Gulf Coast. Since last week, reports showed that the storm would likely reach hurricane strength by the time it made landfall on Sunday. These forecasts proved to be false as Karen winds coming from the north slowed the storm and stopped it from reaching high wind speeds itself. The satellite image below shows the dissipating as it reached the US, making landfall first in Louisiana.



This is great news for the coastal cities that were projected to be in the path of a powerful storm. The National Hurricane Center did not issue any warnings or watches as the storm approached. It has now been eight years since the US has had a major, Category 3 or higher, hurricane make landfall.

In fact, this entire hurricane season has been noticeably quiet. At a time when major storms are thought to be on the rise due to climate change, the US seemed to get lucky this year when it came to hurricane hazards. At least that is what Robert Korty, an associate professor of atmospheric science at Texas A&M University, concluded. If Korty had to guess it would be that dryer than normal air coming from across the Atlantic prevented some of these storms from happening.

It's great news for a country that has already been hit hard by wildfires, floods, and other environmental hazards to have powerful hurricanes generally absent this year. Thankfully we will never know what sort of damage this storm could have caused. This is especially important since the National Hurricane Center is still understaffed due to the government shutdown and when a major storm hits it is important for all possible means of preventing and responding to hazards to be in place.

Sources:
http://science.time.com/2013/10/07/as-tropical-storm-karen-dissipates-the-debate-grows-over-a-quiet-hurricane-season/
http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/archive/2013/al12/al122013.public_a.003.shtml