MarkChristopher's Blog

BEAUMONT, Texas - Call it the instant hurricane. Humberto grew from a tropical depression with 35 mph winds to a full-scale hurricane in 18 hours, surprising the Texas-Louisiana coast Thursday with 80 mph winds and heavy rain.
“To put this development in perspective, no tropical cyclone in the historical record has ever reached this intensity at a faster rate near landfall,” said senior hurricane specialist James Franklin at the National Hurricane Center in Miami.
Meteorologists dismissed the idea that Humberto's rapid growth was the result of global warming. They also noted one positive: The storm's short genesis didn't give Humberto time to build into more than just a minimal hurricane.
Humberto, the first hurricane to hit the U.S. in two years, crashed ashore as a Category 1 storm, killing at least one person, shutting down three refineries and cutting power to 100,000 customers.