Hurricane Katrina: 20 years later, what we now know

Twenty years ago today Hurricane Katrina slammed ashore in Louisiana as one of the costliest and deadliest U.S. disasters. Over 1,300 people died and 80% of New Orleans was submerged in water. The damage was estimated to be $125 billion.

The hurricane rapidly intensified before landfall, which has now become a trend with many storms moving over climate-change induced warm waters. Katrina had top wind speeds of 175 mph as a category 5 hurricane.

What we have now that we didn’t have as easily 20 years ago is good attribution science. We now know that the waters that helped intensify Katrina were 1.6 deg F warmer as a result of climate change.

A new Climate Central analysis found that those ocean temperatures were made 18 times more likely due to human caused climate change and increased K