The passage of Hurricane Ian through the state of Florida caused great devastation.
The President of the United States, Joe Biden, assured on Thursday that “this could be the deadliest hurricane in the history of the state”.
Ian made landfall on Wednesday near Cayo Costa, in the southwest of the peninsula, as a category 4 hurricane and caused a storm surge several meters high that flooded large areas of the southwest coast of Florida.
The experts they assure that it is one of the 5 most powerful hurricanes to hit the US since there are records.
The truth is that in Florida the threat of this type of storm is part of life of local residents.
But why is this state so hit by hurricanes?
Key site on the map
Florida no it is foreign to hurricanes.
Each season, which runs from June to November, residents of the state receive notifications from local authorities on how to prepare for a possible storm.
The main reason why Florida is the scene of a long list of hurricanes and some that become very powerful is basically geographical.
It is a large state that extends for hundreds of kilometers. More accurately, Florida occupies a territory of 29,312 km².
“Florida has a peninsula of 400 miles (643 km) long and the length of Florida’s coastline is almost as long as the coastlines of all other states in the region from Virginia to Texas combined”, Emily Powell, assistant to the state climatologist at the Center for Oceanic-Atmospheric Prediction Studies at Florida State University, tells BBC Mundo.
In addition to its extensive territory, where it is is also key located state.
“When tropical systems begin to make their way to the western Atlantic or the Gulf of Mexico region, Florida a is very susceptible to landfall there“, clarifies the specialist.
The characteristics of the soil of the coasts of the state are another determining factor.
“Florida also it is vulnerable to tropical cyclone impacts in part because of its low-lying coastal areas and bathymetry,” explains Powell.
Bathymetry is the study of the deep sea.
“ The bathymetry of the western coast of Florida on the gulf side is very shallow compared to the eastern side of the Atlantic. This shallow-sloping bathymetry increases the threat of storm surges,” he says.
Historic Hurricanes
There is no consensus on how many hurricanes have hit Florida in history.
According to a count by the Florida Climate Center, the most notable hurricanes that have affected the peninsula are more than 20 in the last century.
The three most powerful Florida hurricanes by wind speed were the Labor Day hurricane in September 1935 with winds from 297 km per hour, Hurricane Andrew in August 1992 with winds from 265 km/h and Hurricane Michael in October 2018 with winds from 150 km/h.
“According to wind speed, the classification of Hurricane Ian, with maximum sustained winds of 132 mph (241 km/h) at landfall, it ties for fourth place with the Florida Keys hurricane of 1919 and Hurricane Charley in 2004, although Ian is much bigger than Charley”, says Powell.
It should be noted that Charley hit in August 2004 Cayo Costa, an island off the coast of the Gulf of Florida, as a category 4 hurricane, killing at least nine people and $6 worth of damage,643 million dollars.
After 18 years, the Hurricane Ian, also a category 4, made landfall in the same place.
In recent history, the most powerful and damaging hurricanes in Florida, apart from Charley, were: