The main reason Idalia was so deadly? Rapid intensification 

Above is an image of the damage Hurricane Idalia did in Keaton Beach, FL

Weather Happening Around The Country 

Hurricane Idalia made landfall on Florida's Gulf Coast on Wednesday as a powerful category 3 storm with winds of up to 125 mph making it the 2nd major hurricane to hit the Florida Gulf Coast in a year. But the way Idalia gained strength and was able to make landfall as a category 3 storm was what made this particular storm so scary. Idalia went through something called rapid intensification, which is when a storm fueled by mainly very warm waters intensifies at a very fast rate. Idalia went from a category 1 storm when it entered the Gulf Coast to a category 4 storm before coming back down to a category 3 at landfall. This made Idalia 1 out of 10 storms to intensify by at least 40 mph in 24 hours before making U.S landfall. The scary part about all of this though is that these storms are going to become more and more prevalent because of climate change. Another scary part about these storms is that there becoming harder to predict because of this and often will cause more damage because of the lack of time to prepare. We are seeing this trend be incredibly prevalent with hurricanes formed in the Atlantic Basin. According to an article titled, "Hurricane Idalia's rapid intensification is becoming the norm for gulf storms" written by Dan Stillman of the Washington Post, "In the Atlantic basin, which includes the Gulf of Mexico, 16 of the 20 hurricanes that formed during 2021 and 2022 rapidly intensified." The main reason all of this is happening is the very warm waters in the Atlantic basin which can be attributed to human-caused climate change. Water temperatures in the path of Idalia were in the upper 80s to 90's which were some of the hottest on record. The warmer the water for a storm, the more moisture that can be sucked up into the storm allowing it to intensify. We have seen this problem a lot in the Gulf of Mexico though a lot recently as water temperatures there have been exceptionally warm in the past few years. We saw it with hurricane Laura in 2020 when it traveled across the gulf going from a category 1 storm to a category 4 storm within 24 hours, and hurricane Ida in 2022 when it went through rapid intensification on its way to being a category 4 storm, and then with Micheal in 2018 when it exploded over the gulf to a Category 5 when the water in the gulf was exceptionally warm. Another way climate change is helping these storms intensify is by slowing them down. According to the same article I mentioned earlier, the earth's poles are warming faster than the equator which in turn is creating a reduced temperature difference between them, potentially creating a slowdown in these tropical systems. 

Source: Stillman, Dan. “Hurricane Idalia’s Rapid Intensification Is Becoming the Norm for Gulf Storms.” The Washington Post, WP Company, 30 Aug. 2023, www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2023/08/29/idalia-rapid-intensification-hurricanes-climate/.