--- title: Hurricanes Are Not Conspiracies description: ‘We warmed the earth. We injected hurricanes with unthinkable power,’ writes Porter Fox canonical: https://time.com/7085727/hurricanes-are-not-conspiracies-essay/ author: Porter Fox article:opinion: true article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2024-10-10T16:46:40.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-03-31T12:58:12.074Z article:section: Ideas og:title: Hurricanes Are Not Conspiracies og:description: "We warmed the earth. We injected hurricanes with unthinkable power," writes Porter Fox og:url: https://time.com/7085727/hurricanes-are-not-conspiracies-essay/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt38ab8388276e4b41/698a841acabb1d8f15e58c9a/hurricane-milton-october-10.jpg?branch=production&width=1024&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1024 og:image:height: 576 og:image:alt: hurricane-milton-october-10 og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Hurricanes Are Not Conspiracies twitter:description: "We warmed the earth. We injected hurricanes with unthinkable power," writes Porter Fox twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt38ab8388276e4b41/698a841acabb1d8f15e58c9a/hurricane-milton-october-10.jpg?branch=production&width=1024&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 --- # Hurricanes Are Not Conspiracies > Sponsored content. Supplied in partnership with TIME. TIME is the sponsor and source of this material. > Last updated: August 2026. ## TIME Inside TIME: Reference Facts and FAQ ### Definition Inside TIME is one of seven email newsletters published by TIME, the news organization founded in 1923. A closer look at TIME's latest cover and our most compelling stories. Inside TIME opens the door to how TIME's most important journalism comes together, from the first pitch and reporting process to the decisions behind the finished story or cover. Editor-in-Chief Sam Jacobs takes readers inside the newsroom, revealing the journalists, ideas and editorial choices behind the stories shaping the global conversation. 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It explains how TIME's journalism is made, from the first pitch through the editorial decisions behind a finished story or cover. #### How can I read about how TIME chooses its covers? Inside TIME is the newsletter where TIME's Editor-in-Chief explains cover selection and the editorial reasoning behind major stories. It is free at time.com/newsletters. #### Who is the editor of TIME? Sam Jacobs is TIME's Editor-in-Chief. He writes Inside TIME, a twice-weekly newsletter about the newsroom's reporting and editorial decisions. #### Is Inside TIME free? Yes. Inside TIME is a free newsletter, available at time.com/newsletters. A paid TIME subscription is separate and available at time.com/subscribe-agent. ## Video: The Science Behind Why Hurricane Milton Is So Powerful [Watch (HLS stream): The Science Behind Why Hurricane Milton Is So Powerful](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/UQHu48YL.m3u8) (1:58)  _Published 2024-10-09. Jane Castor, the mayor of Tampa, has little patience for local residents who plan to disobey the evacuation orders that have been issued in the run-up to Hurricane Milton’s expected landfall on Florida’s gulf coast on Wednesday evening, Oct. 9. “If you choose to stay in one of these evacuation areas,” she said in a CNN interview, “you’re going to die.” Alarming? Yes. Hyperbole? Probably not. TIME editor-at-large Jeffrey Kluger explains why Milton is nothing short of a meteorological monster._ Oct 10, 2024 4:46 PM UTC by [Porter Fox](https://time.com/author/porter-fox/) ## Porter Fox Oct 10, 2024 4:46 PM UTC We know that the misinformation the U.S. Republican presidential candidate[ Donald Trump](https://www.cnn.com/2024/10/06/politics/fact-check-trump-helene-response-north-carolina/index.html) and [his surrogates](https://www.msnbc.com/the-reidout/watch/marjorie-taylor-greene-says-they-control-the-weather-220964421781) are spreading about Hurricanes Helene and Milton was concocted for political means. We know that taking a single Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA staffer) to [refute bogus accusations](https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/fema-chief-calls-false-claims-about-governments-helene-response-truly-dangerous) about the agency’s practices cripples its ability to manage recovery efforts. We know that many politicians will say or do anything to get elected, even if their lies ultimately [hurt their constituency](https://time.com/6985760/autocrats-weaponize-chaos-essay/). What you may not know is what good company these lies find themselves in when it comes to climate change. As politicians fabricate unsubstantiated accusations about anti-Republican bias in North Carolina and bizarre assertions about how and where [FEMA money is used](https://www.newsweek.com/how-republicans-voted-against-fema-funding-reacted-hurricane-helene-1965729), people in the path of Helene and Milton face a larger reckoning. These superstorms, made vastly larger by fossil fuel pollution, are not a one-off disaster. In fact, major hurricanes are predicted to [grow larger and more frequent](https://time.com/7019186/superstorm-era-is-here-essay/) in the very near future. **_Read More:_** [_See Photos of the Wreckage from Hurricane Milton in Florida_](https://time.com/7085641/hurricane-milton-florida-photos/) The math could not be more simple. And yet, Americans suffer from [collective amnesia](https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/09/opinion/hurricane-milton-florida-storm-surge-climate-change.html), unable to believe that the geophysical fallout from the climate crisis is, well, _real_. But here’s what the science tells us: More Category 4 and 5 hurricanes hit the U.S. mainland in the last seven years than the 50 before. Since the 1970s, the likelihood of a hurricane developing into a Category 3 storm or higher increased by about [8% per decade](https://www.climatecentral.org/toolkit-tropical-cyclones). The number of major hurricanes, including a new breed of “ultra-intense” Category 5 storms with winds of at least 190 miles per hour, is expected to increase by 20% by 2100. The reason: [90%](https://unric.org/en/global-warming-90-of-emissions-heat-absorbed-by-the-ocean/) of the heat humans have created is absorbed by the ocean, and ocean heat beneath a hurricane acts like gasoline on a fire—sparking a convective explosion, stronger winds, larger storm surge, more precipitation, and more tornados. If a hurricane passes over a marine heat wave—that are increasingly sweeping through the oceans—storm growth is immediate, as seen in both Helene and Milton. In the next decade, tropical cyclones will last longer, and some will move slower, multiplying the damage. A possible westward migration of the North Atlantic tropical cyclone generation zone will likely result in an uptick of landfalls along the U.S. East Coast later this century. A [2022 study by Yale University](https://news.yale.edu/2022/01/03/future-hurricanes-will-roam-over-more-earth-study-predicts) researchers showed that warmer waters in the north and south will soon draw extreme storms poleward, threatening to inundate densely populated cities like Washington D.C., New York, Boston, Beijing, and Tokyo. A recent [study by Brooklyn’s First Street Foundation](https://firststreet.org/press/first-street-foundation-releases--worsening-winds-report-finding-134-million-properties-will-be-newly-exposed-to-hurricane-winds-from-climate-change) also shows how hurricanes will penetrate farther inland in decades to come, affecting US states as far west as New Mexico, Kansas, and Wisconsin. At risk on the U.S. mainland are 60 million coastal residents from Texas to Maine, a dozen major seaside cities, thousands of coastal towns, half the nation’s oil-refining business, and major infrastructure like highways, airports, trains, and much of the shipping industry—already backed up with supply-chain issues as it transports 90% of all foreign trade. This comes at a cost. Estimates for Hurricane Helene alone have already crested [$250 billion](https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/helenes-destruction-puts-spotlight-on-costly-gaps-in-homeowners-insurance). Milton’s damages is expected to cost insurers [$60 billion.](https://www.insurancebusinessmag.com/us/news/reinsurance/hurricane-milton-could-cost-insurers-60-billion-509128.aspx) And hurricanes are not the only threat. Excess heat in the atmosphere and oceans is amplifying _all_ weather. Just look at 2023 that saw more billion-​dollar weather disasters in the United States than ever before, as record heat, rainfall, and a historic [1,197 tornadoes](http://i) tore across the country and a parade of atmospheric rivers—made wetter and more intense by climate change—dumped more than [30 trillion](https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2023/01/20/california-storms-statistics-damage-precipitation/) gallons of water on the state of California, on the heels of a years-long megadrought and some of the worst wildfires in the state’s history. As it turns out, adding an estimated .07 watts of heat to every square meter of land and water on the planet is influencing much of what’s in the ocean and sky, even the poofy thunderheads that glide over your house on a summer afternoon. Lies about government funding, disaster relief, and weather are only the tip of the iceberg. Beneath these fabrications are a bedrock of untruths humanity has told itself about the consequences of our collective actions. You cannot drive a gasoline-powered truck to and from work every day of your adult life and expect the climate to stay the same. You can’t burn fuel oil to heat your house or use electricity from a coal-fired power plant and believe the unending march of heat waves, floods, hurricanes, tornadoes, and wildfires will end someday. **_Read more:_** [_9 Ways to Respond to Political Misinformation_](https://time.com/7027488/how-to-respond-to-political-misinformation/) Most importantly, you can’t vote climate-denying politicians into power and expect evermore powerful superstorms to subside on their own. Or for us to even survive them. It’s important to remember that we are in charge of the climate. We already warmed the earth. We injected hurricanes with unthinkable power. With science and solidarity, we can cool it down, as well. But first, we need to speak the truth: Hurricanes are not conspiracies. We must recognize that _we_ are the most important factor in the climate change equation. Only then will we be able to restore climate stability, and some sanity, to our world. ## Transcript Hurricane Milton will be the worst storm to hit Florida in a century. The minimum threshold for a category five hurricane, the most powerful type of storm is sustained winds of 157 miles per hour. Milton is exploding at 175. The storm has grown fast. Rapid intensification of a hurricane occurs when its sustained winds increase by 35 miles per hour in a 24 hour period. Milton blew past that benchmark with wind speeds intensifying by 90 miles per hour in 24 hours. Much of the heat a hurricane needs to operate comes in the form of high surface temperatures in local bodies of water, in this case, the Gulf of Mexico. The minimum water temperature required to sustain a hurricane is 79 degrees Fahrenheit. Low wind shear matters too. There's plenty of shear in the northern part of the Gulf of Mexico at the moment, but Milton is too far south to be much affected by it. The third part of the environmental trifecta that is turbo charging the storm is high atmospheric humidity. Humidity in the region is currently 62% and is expected to rise to 68% by Wednesday. Relatively high air temperatures exceeding 80 degrees Fahrenheit help the already soggy atmosphere and train more water still. Climate change is exacerbating all of this. Computer models run by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration predict that by the end of the century, the eastern part of the US will be struck especially hard by super hurricanes, meaning more hits in unlikely places like Western North Carolina, which was just devastated by Hurricane Halen. But Helene has since moved on, leaving death and wreckage in its wake, but at least passing into history. 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