With a death toll surpassing 218 as of this writing, Hurricane Helene has caused havoc across Florida, Georgia, the Carolinas and Tennessee. Millions of residents are still without water or electricity, and inland communities are coping with the loss of their homes and businesses, and with devastating damage to critical infrastructure. 

In the midst of a contentious election season, I suppose it was inevitable that, in addition to horror and heroism, Helene would also inspire myths and misinformation that complicate our understanding of weather phenomena and our ability to respond and plan. For example, the Republican presidential nominee has asserted that “no one could have predicted” a hurricane this devastating “so late in the season for hurricanes.” 

In fact, storms like Helene are becoming the norm, and we are nowhere near the end of the Atlantic hurricane season, which runs from June 1 to November 30 and peaks during September and October, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). NOAA’s 2024 Atlantic Hurricane Season Outlook, issued in May, forecast an extremely active hurricane season, predicting a record 17 to 24 named storms, with eight to 13 reaching hurricane strength and four to seven becoming major hurricanes with winds exceeding 111 miles per hour. By August, the season had already experienced two named tropical storms and two hurricanes. 

Far from rare, severe inland flooding is becoming a hallmark of hurricane season as climate change creates warmer air and ocean temperatures that make storms stronger and wetter. We have felt these effects regionally here in New York. Consider Hurricane Debby, which caused serious damage in the Capital Region and the Finger Lakes as a tropical storm after plowing through Florida, Georgia and the Carolinas in early August. Asheville, NC, an epicenter of damage from Helene, is 500 miles inland from the Big Bend in Florida, where the hurricane made landfall. 

And it’s not just hurricanes and tropical storms: climate change intensifies all kinds of rainfall events. Climate Central, a nonprofit, non-partisan organization that studies these effects, estimates that Allegheny County in Pennsylvania faces an estimated $1.1 billion in flood damages each year due to catastrophic flooding fueled by climate change.

It shouldn’t be that hard to grasp the climate factors that are making storms more destructive. Warmer air causes more water to evaporate into the atmosphere, which returns to the ground as more intense precipitation. Warmer oceans provide the atmospheric conditions that fuel stronger storms, energizing them to intensify more rapidly, travel farther inland, and cut a broader geographic swath. 

NOAA draws a direct link between global warming and the frequency of major hurricanes: “Ocean temperatures in the region where most Atlantic hurricanes form and develop have been trending upwards as the Earth has gradually warmed since the mid-19th century… the number of Atlantic major hurricanes (Saffir-Simpson categories 3–5) is greater during periods of warmer-than-usual temperatures.” 

Meanwhile, the U.S. EPA, the European Union, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and numerous other scientific bodies have concluded that greenhouse gases related to human activities, especially the burning of fossil fuels, have been the dominant cause of this warming since the 1950s.

Given the abundance of science-based documentation, all signs point to stronger, more frequent, more damaging storms, requiring more funding for assistance to devastated families and communities, more investment to storm-harden infrastructure and communications systems, and better long-term planning to address climate migration as people move away from vulnerable coastal areas. 

The Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), the Biden Administration’s signature climate legislation, made $4.6 billion available to states to help communities address climate impacts and make their homes and schools safer. It also funded infrastructure initiatives to mitigate the causes of climate change. Those initiatives include renewable energy, energy efficiency, electrified transportation and forest management and farming practices that sequester carbon in the soil. 

To qualify, states must submit comprehensive climate action plans. When the legislation was signed in 2022, only 33 states had plans in place; others are now working on their plans. Five states—Iowa, Kentucky, South Dakota, Wyoming and, incredibly, Florida—have declined to compete for the funds, although cities within those states are stepping up.

We are long past the time when science denial can be accepted as a viable point of view and climate catastrophes can be dismissed as “just weather.”

Back in 2013, the Center for American Progress (CAP) reported that the 10 states that received the most federal recovery funds in 2011 and 2012 after climate-related extreme events had collectively sent 47 climate-science deniers to the U.S. Senate and the House of Representatives—legislators who routinely work to block programs and policies that would benefit their constituents. 

More recently, in its analysis of the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025, CAP reported that the plan calls for the U.S. to withdraw from key international efforts to address climate change and would dismantle all the clean energy, climate resiliency and infrastructure programs funded through the IRA. Those initiatives make communities safer, fostering innovation and driving economic recovery. You can’t make this stuff up.