Record warm waters power Hurricane Idalia's path to the coast

Hurricane Idalia is gathering strength as it churns toward Florida’s northern Gulf Coast, fueled by a sizzling marine heat wave that has gripped the Gulf of Mexico all summer.

The storm could surge into a catastrophic Category 4 cyclone before making landfall Wednesday morning, National Hurricane Center forecasters warned.

Its path toward Florida’s Big Bend region includes waters where sea surface temperatures are hitting 90 degrees. The Gulf is warm under normal circumstances — water temperatures tend to hover in the 80s this time of year — but those extra few degrees are hurricane juice, researchers and meteorologists say.

“It just makes rapid intensification more likely,” said Brian McNoldy, a hurricane expert at the University of Miami.

Though much remains unknown about what causes hurricanes to strengthen swiftly, a few factors can help. Warm waters and low wind shear — a measurement of the way winds change speed or direction as they move over the ocean — are key.

Idalia tussled with some wind shear as it churned slowly through the Caribbean over the weekend, but conditions turned more favorable as it pushed past Cuba and entered the Gulf late Monday night. Wind shear is lower, and the waters are as warm as a bathtub. The National Hurricane Center’s latest forecast predicts it will hit the coast as at least a Category 3 storm, with winds around 125 mph, but the National Hurricane Center warned that some models had winds reaching as much as 138 mph.

By the time it makes landfall, experts expect Idalia will meet the threshold for what scientists call rapid intensification — that’s when a storm’s wind speeds increase by at least 35 mph within a 24-hour period.

That would make it the second storm this season to rapidly intensify. Hurricane Franklin, now churning toward Bermuda in the Atlantic Ocean, became the strongest storm of the summer so far after ballooning Monday into a Category 4 hurricane.

Last year’s devastating Hurricane Ian swelled from a weak Category 1 to Category 3 in a single day, before ultimately making landfall as a Category 4 storm along the state’s southwest coast.

The phenomenon is growing more common as the climate warms, research suggests. A 2019 study found that the proportion of cyclones undergoing rapid intensification is increasing across the Atlantic Basin, and that intensification rates are rising. A 2018 study also found that hurricanes are intensifying faster than they used to.

Rapid intensification can cause problems for communities in a storm’s path. It can sometimes cause forecasts to underestimate a storm’s intensity when it makes landfall, leaving people with little time to prepare for a major hurricane.

Models are getting better at predicting rapid intensification events, said Philip Klotzbach, a hurricane expert at Colorado State University. In Idalia’s case, scientists saw the burst of intensity coming days in advance. But it’s still a tricky business.

“It’s still hard — sometimes these storms really explode,” he said. “There’s still a challenge there.”

A summer of record-breaking heat

This summer’s unusual water temperatures are part of an ongoing pattern, experts say. The Gulf of Mexico has been warming for decades — and the warming has accelerated in recent years. One recent study found that temperatures there have risen swiftly since 2010.

Human-caused climate change has a clear influence on Gulf temperatures. But other factors may also be at play, said Mark Bourassa, associate director of Florida State University’s Center for Ocean-Atmosphere Prediction Studies.

“We know it’s warming, we know it has been warming, but in the last few years we’ve seen it warm up a lot more than we would expect from [human-caused] warming,” he said. “It’s not clear what’s doing it.”

There are a few theories about what’s going on this summer, said Zhankun Wang, an oceanographer at Mississippi State University and lead author of the recent study on rising Gulf water temperatures.

The Gulf Coast has experienced record-breaking air temperatures this summer — New Orleans just felt its hottest weather on record at 105 degrees Sunday. Extreme air temperatures may be funneling extra heat into the upper water layers of the Gulf of Mexico, Wang suggested.

That’s likely to happen more often in the future, as climate change drives more frequent and intense heat waves.

Some scientists also believe that the much-feared weakening of a major Atlantic Ocean current, which among other things carries warm water from the tropics toward Western Europe and the U.S. East Coast, could be causing more heat to build up in the Gulf over the long term, Wang added. Studies indicate that the current has been slowing for decades and climate change is likely at least partly to blame.

Record heat in the larger Atlantic Ocean basin likely has had at least some influence on Gulf temperatures this summer, too, Klotzbach added. The North Atlantic, in general, has experienced some of its hottest temperatures ever recorded over the last few months.

The long-term influence of climate change is steadily increasing ocean temperatures over time. The world’s oceans hit their hottest temperatures on record in 2022 for the fourth year in a row, scientists announced in January.

But a few additional factors have probably contributed to this year’s extreme heat. Trade winds over the Atlantic have been weaker than usual, and they haven’t churned up the ocean as much as they would in a normal year. That’s allowed the water to sit relatively stagnant and soak up heat.

In a typical year, winds also sweep large volumes of dust from the Sahara Desert in Africa out over the ocean. This dust has a slight cooling effect on local temperatures. But this year’s weaker winds have carried less dust, contributing to even faster warming.

Under ordinary conditions, scientists would expect above-average hurricane activity from such extreme ocean heat. But it’s been an unusual summer for another reason, too.

This year has been marked by a strong El Niño event, a natural climate pattern that causes temporary warming in the eastern and central Pacific. Because the world’s oceans are so closely connected, El Niños can influence weather all over the globe. El Niño years also tend to see drops in Atlantic hurricane activity, because of higher wind shear.

Scientists weren’t totally sure what to expect at the beginning of this season, said Klotzbach, the Colorado State University scientist. This combination of conditions is largely uncharted territory.

“We’ve never had a strong El Niño with a record warm Atlantic at the same time,” he said. “So we’re kind of off in a spectrum that we haven’t seen, which makes forecasting extra challenging.”

Colorado State University and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration each issue an annual hurricane forecast at the beginning of the season. Both institutions predicted an average season this year, assuming that the influence of El Niño and the extreme warm waters would essentially cancel each other out.

But Atlantic wind shear hasn’t been too extreme so far this year. That may be partly because El Niño is still gathering strength, said McNoldy, the University of Miami scientist.

And the warm waters have helped some storms battle through the wind shear that does exist, Klotzbach added. Rapidly intensifying Franklin is a prime example.

“It did get torn apart by shear, but managed to hang on,” Klotzbach said. “And then it got into a much more conducive environment, and now it’s exploded.”

Scientists measure seasonal hurricane activity in a few different ways. One is the total number of storms that form. Another is the total accumulated cyclone energy, which measures the cumulative wind speed and strength of all the storms that form throughout the season.

Thanks to the combination of Franklin and Idalia, this season already is approaching the average level of total accumulated energy for a typical season, Klotzbach said — and the season is only half over. That means there’s a good chance it will end as an above-average season after all, with the record warm waters largely to blame.

This summer’s unusual confluence of conditions may have been a first, but it likely won’t be the last. Studies suggest that El Niño events may grow more severe as the Earth continues to warm. The oceans also will keep warming as long as humans continue to pour greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, and scientists expect marine heat waves will grow more frequent and severe.

“Next time we have a season that looks like this, 2023 will be a great analog,” Klotzbach said. “But we’re a little bit flying blind in 2023.”

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'A big f-ing deal': Dem convention delegates will stay within Chicago city limits

CHICAGO — State delegations attending the 2024 Democratic National Convention will get to do something almost unheard of: Stay in a hotel within the city limits.

Hotels for next year's Democratic convention delegates are all in downtown Chicago and all within close proximity of each other, allowing high-profile speakers to travel quickly from one hotel to another for the Aug. 19-22, 2024 event.

“It means we’ll be able to conduct joint activities together whether it's nighttime fundraisers or events. You name it,” Ken Martin, chair of the Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party for the past 13 years and vice chair of the Democratic National Committee, told POLITICO.

Conventions often overwhelm cities with demand for hotel space, and delegations wind up in far-flung suburbs with long commutes. The Chicago convention could be a significant quality of life improvement for the 2024 convention delegates.

Martin recalled hotels for Democratic conventions in Philadelphia and Charlotte “so far spread out that it made it virtually impossible for state party delegations to actually do joint activities together.”

He called the improved logistics “a big f-ing deal.”

The Chicago hotels designated for the convention are within a five-mile radius of official convention venues — including McCormick Place, where the party plans to conduct daytime meetings, and the United Center, where evening proceedings will be broadcast nationwide.

State party chairs and executive directors have already been notified about where they’ll be staying. Delegates will travel to Chicago in a few weeks for a Sept. 12 preview day that will include convention site visits and tours of their respective hotels.

The Biden Victory Fund also has a meeting scheduled in Chicago as part of the visit.

State Sen. Bill DeMora, a delegate director for Ohio Democrats, said he has found the logistics to be so smooth he would love to see all the Democratic conventions hosted in Chicago.

“I remember staying about an hour away at the convention in Charlotte. Our delegation was split up between multiple hotels,” he told POLITICO, referring to the North Carolina convention in 2012, one of the seven conventions he's been to over the years. Next year, the entire Ohio delegation will all stay at one hotel, the Fairmont, and will be housed with four other state delegations, he said.

The promise of close hotels to convention events was a big reason Chicago was chosen to host the convention, according to party leaders who spoke to POLITICO. And it helped that all the hotels the convention will use are unionized, since unions are an important constituency for the Democratic base.

While many of the hotels are within walking distance from each other, delegates will be bused back and forth to McCormick Place for official meetings. The trek will take them along a two-and-a-half-mile restricted access route used only by Chicago’s mayor, the Cook County Board president and special buses with security clearance. Officials taking part in the 2012 NATO G-8 Summit in Chicago also used the route.

Former Mayor Rahm Emanuel liked to call it the “bat cave” because a large portion of the route is underground.

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Hawaii power utility takes responsibility for first fire on Maui, but faults firefighters

HONOLULU — Hawaii’s electric utility acknowledged its power lines started a wildfire on Maui but faulted county firefighters for declaring the blaze contained and leaving the scene, only to have a second wildfire break out nearby and become the deadliest in the U.S. in more than a century.

Hawaiian Electric Company released a statement Sunday night in response to Maui County’s lawsuit blaming the utility for failing to shut off power despite exceptionally high winds and dry conditions. Hawaiian Electric called that complaint “factually and legally irresponsible,” and said its power lines in West Maui had been de-energized for more than six hours when the second blaze started.

In its statement, the utility addressed the cause for the first time. It said the fire on the morning of Aug. 8 “appears to have been caused by power lines that fell in high winds.” The Associated Press reported Saturday that bare electrical wire that could spark on contact and leaning poles on Maui were the possible cause.

But Hawaiian Electric appeared to blame Maui County for most of the devastation — the fact that the fire appeared to reignite that afternoon and tore through downtown Lahaina, killing at least 115 people and destroying 2,000 structures.

Richard Fried, a Honolulu attorney working as co-counsel on Maui County’s lawsuit, countered that if their power lines hadn’t caused the initial fire, “this all would be moot.”

“That’s the biggest problem,” Fried said Monday. “They can dance around this all they want. But there’s no explanation for that.”

Mike Morgan, an Orlando attorney who’s currently on Maui to work on wildfire litigation for his firm, Morgan & Morgan, said he thinks Hawaiian Electric’s statement was an attempt to shift liability and total responsibility.

“By taking responsibility for causing the first fire, then pointing the finger on a fire that started 75 yards away and saying, ‘That’s not our fault, we started it but they should’ve put it out,’ I’m not sure how that will hold up,” Morgan, who manages complex litigation, said Monday. “It’s also so premature because there are ongoing investigations.”

Officials with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives who are investigating the cause and origin of the fire, and lawyers involved in the litigation, were at a warehouse Monday to inspect electrical equipment taken from the neighborhood where the fire is thought to have originated. The utility took down the burnt poles and removed fallen wires from the site.

Videos and images analyzed by AP confirmed that the wires that started the morning fire were among miles of line that the utility left naked to the weather and often-thick foliage, despite a recent push by utilities in other wildfire- and hurricane-prone areas to cover up their lines or bury them.

Compounding the problem is that many of the utility’s 60,000, mostly wooden power poles, which its own documents described as built to “an obsolete 1960s standard,” were leaning and near the end of their projected lifespan. They were nowhere close to meeting a 2002 national standard that key components of Hawaii’s electrical grid be able to withstand 105 mile per hour winds.

As Hurricane Dora passed roughly 500 miles (800 kilometers) south of Hawaii Aug. 8, Lahaina resident Shane Treu heard a utility pole snap next to Lahainaluna Road. He saw a downed power line ignite the grass and called 911 at 6:37 a.m. to report the fire. Small brush fires aren’t unusual for Lahaina, and a drought in the region had left plants, including invasive grasses, dangerously dry. The Maui County Fire Department declared that fire 100% contained by 9:55 a.m. Firefighters then left to attend to other calls.

Hawaiian Electric said its own crews then went to the scene that afternoon to make repairs and did not see fire, smoke or embers. The power to the area was off. Shortly before 3 p.m., those crews saw a small fire in a nearby field and called 911, the utility said.

Residents said the embers from the morning fire had reignited and the fire raced toward downtown Lahaina. Treu’s neighbor Robert Arconado recorded video of it spreading at 3:06 p.m., as large plumes of smoke rise near Lahainaluna Road and are carried downtown by the wind.

Hawaiian Electric is a for-profit, investor-owned, publicly traded utility that serves 95% of Hawaii’s electric customers. CEO Shelee Kimura said there are important lessons to be learned from this tragedy, and resolved to “figure out what we need to do to keep our communities safe as climate issues rapidly intensify here and around the globe.”

The utility faces a spate of new lawsuits that seek to hold it responsible. Wailuku attorney Paul Starita, lead counsel on three lawsuits by Singleton Schreiber, called it a “preventable tragedy of epic proportions.”

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Police search for suspected shooter at University of North Carolina; students warned to stay inside

CHAPEL HILL, N.C. — An apparent shooting at the University of North Carolina flagship campus on Monday led to a school-wide alert warning of an “armed, dangerous person on or near campus” and urging people to go inside and avoid windows.

Authorities didn’t immediately provide details of the alleged shooting on the Chapel Hill campus, including whether anyone had been shot. But Gov. Roy Cooper posted on X, formerly known as Twitter, that he had spoken to the Orange County sheriff and the state’s public safety secretary and “pledged all state resources needed to capture the shooter and protect the UNC campus.”

Cooper didn’t provide further information. School officials said as soon as they had verified information, they would share it. They didn’t immediately respond to an email seeking further details.

The school’s first alert was sent out just after 1 p.m. At 1:50 p.m., officials posted on X that the shelter-in-place order remained in effect and that it was “an ongoing situation.” About 40 minutes later, the school added a post saying: “Remain sheltered in place. This is an ongoing situation. Suspect at large.”

About two hours after the first alert went out, officers were still arriving in droves, with about 30 police vehicles at the scene and multiple helicopters circling over the school, where the fall semester started last week.

An officer admonished two people who tried to exit the student center, yelling, “Inside, now!”

About 10 minutes later, law enforcement escorted a group of students out of one of the science buildings, with everyone walking in an orderly line with their hands up.

A student told TV station WTVD that she had barricaded her dormitory door with her furniture. Another student, speaking softly, described hiding in fear with others in a dark bathroom.

The report of the shooting and subsequent lockdown paralyzed campus and parts of the surrounding town of Chapel Hill a week after classes began at the state’s flagship public university. The university has approximately 20,000 undergraduate students and 12,000 graduate students.

Noel T. Brewer, a professor of health behavior, said that he was once held at gunpoint in his mother’s jewelry store, but that Monday’s apparent shooting and lockdown was “far more stressful.”

Speaking from his locked office where he hid with other colleagues, Brewer, 57, said by phone that he was getting little information.

Brewer, a married father of two young kids, said he felt for anyone who might have been shot.

“But even in our own building, the students who are locked down and what they’re thinking about — it’s just a lot. It’s a terrible situation,” said Brewer, a married father of two young children.

It was also the first day of kindergarten for Brewer’s 5-year-old son. His elementary school was also on lockdown.

“He doesn’t know what’s going on. And at some point, he’s going to realize that he hasn’t gotten on the bus when he’s supposed to,” he said.

Brewer, who also has a 2-year-old added: “My husband and I have been trading texts and trying to figure out what to do … Just wondering how our kids are feeling. It’s a lot.”

One of Brewer’s colleagues is visiting from Africa and staying in the U.S. for the first time.

“She said her one concern was guns and possibly something happening at the university,” Brewer said. “And this was her first faculty meeting, and her worst nightmare came true.”

As he and his colleagues waited in locked offices, they texted each other about whether it was safe to walk to the bathroom.

“We’re trying to tell each other stories and talk about cooking and trying to not get worked up,” he said. “But at the same time, we’re fielding lots of texts and calls from friends and family and colleagues.”

Nearby Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools posted on social media that all doors would be locked at its schools and offices until authorities say it’s safe.

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DOT levies largest-ever penalty against American Airlines for tarmac delays

The Transportation Department has issued a $4 million fine against Texas-based American Airlines for leaving passengers stranded on the tarmac for three hours or more — the agency's largest penalty to date for a single domestic airline for breaking the rule.

DOT’s rules permit aircraft to idle awaiting takeoff for only three hours max for a domestic flight, without offering passengers a chance to deplane. However, following an investigation, the agency determined American “kept dozens of flights stuck on the tarmac for long periods of time without letting passengers off."

American spokesperson Sarah Jantz said the referenced delays were as a result of “exceptional weather events,” and represented a small amount of “the 7.7 million flights during this time period.”

In addition to improving its performance on tarmac delays, “we have since apologized to the impacted customers and regret any inconvenience caused,” Jantz said.

Background: DOT has broad consumer protection authority, which has been used in the past to underpin decisions to fine airlines for keeping passengers sitting on the tarmac for too long, for failing to issue prompt refunds, or violating similar rules.

The agency’s Office of Aviation Consumer Protection studied incidents between 2018 and 2021, and found that American allowed "43 domestic flights to remain on the tarmac for lengthy periods without providing passengers an opportunity to deplane,” it said. Passengers were also not offered food or water — a staple of the rule — during the delays, officials said.

The majority of the delays occurred at Dallas Fort Worth International Airport — American’s central hub — and affected a total of 5,821 passengers.

Similarly, in 2021, DOT announced $1.9 million in fines against United Airlines for violating the same rule, which at the time was the largest fine to date for breaking the rules.

What’s next: In recent months, DOT has proposed a series of rules intended to better protect airline consumers, the most substantial of which would strengthen protections for airline passengers who want a cash refund after a flight is canceled.

DOT on Monday said roughly half of the fine will be “credited to the airline for compensation provided to passengers on the affected flights.”

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Joe the Plumber, who questioned Obama's tax policies during the 2008 campaign, has died at 49

TOLEDO, Ohio — Samuel “Joe” Wurzelbacher, who was thrust into the political spotlight as “Joe the Plumber” after questioning Barack Obama about his economic policies during the 2008 presidential campaign, and who later forayed into politics himself, has died, his son said Monday. He was 49.

His oldest son, Joey Wurzelbacher, said his father died Sunday in Wisconsin after a long illness. His family announced this year on an online fundraising site that he had pancreatic cancer.

“The only thing I have to say is that he was a true patriot,” Joey Wurzelbacher — whose father had the middle name Joseph and went by Joe — said in a telephone interview. “His big thing is that everyone come to God. That’s what he taught me, and that’s a message I hope is heard by a lot of people.”

He went from toiling as a plumber in suburban Toledo, Ohio, to life as a media sensation when he asked Obama about his tax plan during a campaign stop.

Their exchange and Obama’s response that he wanted to “spread the wealth around” aired often on cable news. Days later, Obama's Republican opponent, Sen. John McCain, repeatedly cited “Joe the Plumber” in a presidential debate.

Wurzelbacher went on to campaign with McCain and his running mate, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, but he later criticized McCain in his book and said he did not want him as the GOP presidential nominee.

His sudden fame turned him into a sought-after voice for many anti-establishment conservatives, and he traveled the country speaking at tea party rallies and conservative gatherings.

He also wrote a book and worked with a veterans organization that provided outdoor programs for wounded soldiers.

In 2012, he made a bid for a U.S. House seat in Ohio, but he lost in a landslide to Democrat Marcy Kaptur in a district heavily tilted toward Democrats.

Republicans had recruited him to run and thought his fame would help bring in enough money to mount a serious challenge. But he drew criticism during the campaign for suggesting that the United States should build a fence at the Mexico border and “start shooting” at immigrants suspected of entering the country illegally.

Wurzelbacher returned to working as a plumber after he gave up on politics, his family said.

Funeral arrangements were pending. Survivors include his wife, Katie, and four children.

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Pentagon bets on quick production of autonomous systems to counter China

The Pentagon is about to make a huge bet that it can field thousands of autonomous systems within two years — an attempt to use technological innovation to counter China’s much larger stockpile of traditional weapons.

The ambitious effort, named Replicator, will be spearheaded by Deputy Defense Secretary Kathleen Hicks, who previewed the push in an interview. Hicks will formally announce the initiative Monday in a speech at the National Defense Industrial Association's Emerging Technologies for Defense Conference.

China, China, China: Hicks said the time is right to push to rapidly scale up innovative technology. The move comes as the U.S. looks to get creative to deter China in the Indo-Pacific and Pentagon leadership has taken stock of how Ukraine has fended off Russia's invasion.

"Industry is ready. The culture is ready to shift," Hicks said. "We have to drive that from the top, and we need to give it a hard target."

“The great paradox of military innovation is you're going to have to make big bets and you've got to execute on those bets,” she added.

The plan: With Replicator, the Pentagon aims to have thousands of autonomous systems across various domains produced and delivered in 18 to 24 months.

Hicks declined to discuss what specific platforms might be produced under the program — such as aerial drones or unmanned ships — citing the “competition landscape” in the defense industry as well as concerns about tipping DOD's hand to China. The Pentagon will instead "say more as we get to production on capabilities."

Why now: The Pentagon is pushing to counter threats posed by China in the Pacific amid concerns that Beijing may accrue the military might needed to invade Taiwan before the decade is out.

Defense leaders are also fighting an arduous battle to quickly ramp up the industrial base to replenish military inventories of missiles and other weapons that have been sent to Ukraine, but that could also be of use in a China-Taiwan conflict.

Why this tech: Autonomous weapons are seen as a potential way to counter China's numerical advantages in ships, missiles and troops in a rapidly narrowing window. Fielding large numbers of cheap, expendable drones, proponents argue, is faster and lower-cost than exquisite weapons systems and puts fewer troops at risk.

Rinse, repeat: Another major aim of the Replicator initiative is to provide a template for future efforts to rapidly field military technology.

She said lessons from the Replicator program could be applied throughout the Pentagon, military services and combatant commands.

"The pieces that work well, they can be replicated throughout the department where they see what we've been able to do," Hicks said. "So if it's cutting years off of a process because we've got the standards figured out and right. If it's because there's a lack of communication between two components and we fixed that problem, that kind of speeding can happen through this formal process."

Funding: Hicks predicted the price tag would be in the hundreds of millions of dollars rather than billions of dollars. She noted that the Pentagon is harnessing many programs that are already underway, but added the Pentagon may need to "augment" some spending.

"Dollars are not the major challenge," Hicks said. "Getting the production up and running and getting it at scale is."

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